


Rattle

by JenniferO



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Monster of the Week, Multi, Strong Female Characters, alternative arc 4 set in March and not February, fic playlist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:42:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 45,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22085833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenniferO/pseuds/JenniferO
Summary: With the awakening of Spring, Kepler’s citizens are warmed by the sunlight.But something runs underground, casting homesteads in darkness.
Relationships: Juno Divine/Duck Newton, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 14





	1. Call Her Green, and the Winters Cannot Fade Her

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I ran into issues, which you'll probably be able to spot. I am aware that this work shares a lot of tropes with @thor20's TMWCIFTC. I realized them early on in writing the first few chapters and actually stopped working on it for ages. But I have spoken to her about it and she understood and gave me the go-ahead.
> 
> This has been in the works since May, so please enjoy. Thank you for all your support!
> 
> There's a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3U6dgxlZjT5um5jN91B2ap?si=CpVWEHLRTEenIdWUP6hdoQ) for this fic - because of course there is - curated since the first inklings of this story appeared in my brain
> 
> For my next trick, i will Eat the month of January

Pale moonlight spills down through a canopy of oak leaves and pine needles and across the coarse dirt ground of a dense area in the Monongahela National Forest.

The night sky is clear as the sounds of crickets and a swelled, gentle stream nearby fill the evening spring air. It has rained recently, and so the forest floor is damp and littered with fresh leaves that have been ripped from their trees by the rough wind.

Several chains from the main pathway through the Monongahela, this thicketed area is quiet, dark and still. But that stillness is disturbed by a quiet rumble under a patch of ground around the neat trunks of red spruce.

The rumble - the rattle, grows louder and louder until the area shakes and shudders, the earth quaking in its contained place until it is simply broken.

A split in the ground forms until it’s ripped from the inside, a black mist enveloping the space, woodland creatures darting from the scene. The split grows in size until this dark fissure is just over a foot wide and the mist becomes spiraling and thick. It swirls around the center of the split before culminating together, and seemingly being seized and pulled back down beneath the ground.

The fracture in the forest floor is still once again, and after a few moments, calm returns to the area.

Finally, when a handful of the surrounding trees rattle and are pulled towards the fissure in a twisting motion, the horrified, desperate creaking of old trees being willed into a position they didn’t grow to be in echoes across the Monongahela.

The pale moon stares down on Kepler, undaunted.

* * *

_ Duck Newton couldn’t feel his hands. _

_ He stood still in a green meadow, seeing several yards around him before the land was enclosed by a thick, green mist. It was warm and he could smell the saturation and claustrophobia that came with humid air. There was faint buzzing sound surrounding the area, and Duck was reminded vaguely of the chirping of summer cicadas. _

_ His eyes adjusted, and as they did, in front of him, he saw something standing proud and dead. _

_ A huge, black tree. Leafless. Roughly fifteen feet tall from where Duck could see. Branches reaching up into the fog above, spiraling and stretching like vines into patterns so esoteric he had no idea what type of tree this could have been. _

_ As Duck surveyed this tree, he noticed it was almost... twisted into a bizarre posture as its trunk met its roots. It was as if something had distorted it, like it had been ripped apart and stitched back together. As if its roots and the ground beneath was all dislocated limbs, sculpted back together with several grassy knolls. _

_ Something burned in Duck's chest as his eyes trailed down the tree, and found that in front of it, lay a body, face down. Out cold, but breathing. _

_ The figure's unmoving hands seemed to fade into the tree, their fingers and the tree’s roots seemingly weaving together into one. It was impossible to tell where flesh met black bark. _

_ Soft brown hair spilled around into the saturated grass... _

_ And a park ranger hat lay abandoned on the ground a few feet away. _

A chill shot up Duck’s spine and he woke up coughing, hunching over into a sitting position. The burning in his chest was still there and remained for a few seconds.

He rubbed his eyes and blinked them open, and he was back in his bedroom.

“Shit...” he said, voice hollow. “A fuckin’  _ tree _ ?”

The time on the alarm clock read 6:14 a.m. and Duck remembered he wouldn’t have to leave for work until the afternoon. He was gonna go back to sleep, but he wanted water first.

He pushed the blanket away and got to his feet, the floor was cold in the chill of the early morning. Slivers of orange street light filtered through the blinds, casting bars over his room as he slowly walked. He was a droopy, tired man.

He pushed open his bedroom door and flicked on the living room light. Next to the television, Lily’s eyes reluctantly opened, and she squinted at him from the stack of blankets she was curled up on. Duck had bought her her own little cat bed months ago and she’d straight up ignored it and tried to move into the cardboard box it came in. It was still in the corner of his bedroom, untouched.

She yawned, stretched out a brown speckled paw, and chirped once at him as he walked to the kitchen.

“No breakfast yet,” Duck told her. His voice was slowly clearing, and he turned into the kitchen.

He got his water and drank as he wandered over to where Lily was. She chirped at him again and pushed her head forcefully into his hand as he pet her. When he scratched behind her ear, she stood and turned around in circles on the blanket a few times, purring all the while.

Duck sighed and crouched down beside her, careful not to spill the water. He closed his eyes and focused on the feeling of soft fur between his fingers, and the shape of that black tree flashed in front of him again. It was only a couple weeks until the full moon, and there were a lot of fucking trees around. And shit - whoever that ranger was, it was one of his co-workers. Something was going to try and hurt one of them.

Each of their names rang through his head like alarm bells.

Juno, Tara, Kaida, and James.

Whether he knew one better than the others or not, it didn’t matter.

Duck noticed when he got back to his feet, he felt dread pooling in his gut.

He went back to the kitchen, placed his empty glass in the sink, and dragged himself back to bed. With how heavily his thoughts weigh against his head, he didn’t notice Lily hopping off the blankets and following behind him.

* * *

She used her mornings.

She used them to allow herself to be an old lady. She used them to cook for her neighbors, to sing to herself, to call her mom, fix household objects that needed fixing, anything the Monongahela trails took away the time for her to do during the week.

With her hair pinned back, Juno sat on the steps leading down from the deck in the backyard, cool morning air whipping at her neck. Soft soil speckled her jeans as she worked on moving a bulb of sage from a spot in her garden into a clay pot, whistling as she went. On the small table by the door, sat the three other pots of herbs she’d finished work on so far that were ready to go indoors and live on her kitchen windowsill.

Juno’s garden was small and only extended a few yards down before being closed off by a wooden fence. It used to have stone tiles covering the ground, but she’d ripped them up a few years prior, and made use of the free space and built a little vegetable garden.

Over the winter, she’d tried her best to care for the plants as she could, and she was always being reminded that spring was on its way.

She was deeply in love with all those small reminders. The lilting songs of blackbirds, snowdrops wilting one by one, frost no longer appearing on fences and cars in the mornings. It was always nostalgic and heartwarming.

She reached over and took a sip from the coffee mug next to her, and proceeded to finished patting the soil down in the pot gently around the bulb with her gloved hands.

“Nice,” she said - she wasn’t sure who to, probably the sage.

The steps creaked as she pushed herself up to her feet. She carried the pot across the deck with both hands and placed it down with the others by the door, and grabbed a broom.

She swept the soil off the steps and listened to the swishing noise of the brush on the deck. The sound blended with the sounds of cars driving by and birds singing, the motion was continuous and it sent her thoughts darting with each movement.

She spent about five minutes in that trance, snapping out of it just before she accidentally swept the broom into the half-full coffee mug. She stared it for a moment and bent down to pick it up. She examined its contents, swirling it around in the mug for a moment in case flecks of dirt had been swept in.

She looked around the deck as she lifted the mug to her lips and let her shoulders drop. Closing her eyes and smiling to herself, aware of the fact that she was likely letting herself slip into another daydream, Juno leaned on the broom and felt a chill breeze sweep across her face. It was brisk in the early spring morning, and the lukewarm coffee through her body worked wonders.

She opened her eyes and turned on her heel towards the door to find herself facing the birdfeeder. It was a cute frame attached to the wall, in a position where you could see it perfectly from the kitchen window.

It needed refilling. Juno knew she had a huge thing of birdseed in a cabinet by the sink. She put the broom back and took the mug of coffee into the kitchen and poured it down the drain. She then set to work on filling the birdfeeder and carrying the pots of herbs in one by one.

Juno liked using her Saturdays for things like this. She wasn’t sure if she had any other chores that needed doing in her house, maybe some dusting, maybe a bit of grocery shopping.

The kitchen was clean, all washed windows and polished counters. She scoffed a little to herself at the reality that the girl who, in high school, had broken a window to an abandoned department store with a hockey stick, a cigarette tucked behind her ear, had decades later, became a woman who cleaned her kitchen on a Friday night. People change.

Once the birdfeeder was full, and the herbs were situated happily on the windowsill, Juno kicked off her boots, and brewed another cup of coffee. She took it to the living room, kind of just hovering around, like she usually did when she ran out of things to do. She scanned the framed pictures of her family scattered about the walls for cobwebs, looked if the rug required a vacuum, combed through her mind, looking for tasks she’d forgotten. She came up empty.

The window was now letting in bright morning light, gleaming off the table lamp on the small wooden desk at the front of the living room. It consisted mainly of paper stacks, candles and a cup of pencils. There was a large, 400-page book sitting closed on it, which was busy pressing some small flowers.

Maybe she’d try and draw something.

* * *

_ “Through the clouds does the sun scream her way _

_ To cast on you a daily ray _

_ She will do so until her nightly rest, _

_ With which to her do we share and repay.” _

Aubrey smoothed over the book’s pages and listened to the cracking of the binding. Morning light poured through the lodge’s lobby windows, setting the book in a soft glow.

“That one was nice,” Dani said, leaning over to look at the small illustrations of flowers next to the small poem. “Who was that?”

Aubrey looked down to read off the poet’s name next to the poem’s title. “Uhhh, someone caaalled… Aivery. It just says Aivery.”

Aubrey watched Jake throw his legs over the back of the armchair and lean upside down to let his blond hair fall brush the wooden floor. “I liked that one, I got it,” he said, closing his eyes.

It had been like this for almost half an hour. Aubrey sat on the soft rug, back against the couch, with a gigantic anthology of Sylvain poetry in her lap, reading off short poems from different time periods.

Dani lay on the couch, looking over Aubrey’s shoulder at the small illustrations of the poems in the book and scribbling them out onto her sketchbook. Dr. Harris Bonkers was climbing about the couch and around her feet, looking for fun.

And Jake was just reclining in any way he saw fit, legs thrown every which way, on the large armchair.

Aubrey stretched out a leg towards him and booped his forehead with her toe, and scooted back when he opened his eyes. He saw her, but smiled warmly at her anyway.

An arm reached over Aubrey’s shoulder, pencil in hand, and used it to tap the book lightly. Over the last half hour, that had become Dani’s signal for Aubrey to turn the page.

“You done?” She asked.

“Mm-hm.” Dani’s sketchbook appeared at her side and she saw scattered around on the paper in dark pencil strokes, the flowers, a two-headed swan in a small lake, an intricate crown, a little teapot, a strange shaped tombstone and a few patches of grass. All from different poems Aubrey had read to them.

“They’re great,” Aubrey said with a smile, and turned her attention to the book and turned the page.

More illustrations were printed on the bottom half of the page and two short haikus were arranged above them. Already, Aubrey heard the soft scratching of pencil on paper behind her head.

Her gaze lifted and she soon ended up staring out the window, and steadily processing how warm the room was after spending a bit of time being bathed in soft light through the glass windows. From here, she could see the tops of pine trees outside that swayed only gently, and clouds parting slow in the sky. The sunrays cast into the room gleamed over the floor and across Jake’s weary face, who peered at her through one open eye, which seemed to glow a paler shade of blue in the sunlight.

Thank you, sun. Aubrey thought. Then she blinked, and snapped back into the present. “Oh,” she said, tapping the book a couple times with her fingers. “Okay, uh. Another one?”

“Yeah, man.” Jake stretched out like a cat, and almost lost his place on the chair, slipping down but catching himself before he fell to the floor like a dumbass.

“Alright, uh…

_ Flowers, so meticulously built _

_ Animals, so tactfully structured _

_ The ocean, so daringly painted _

_ Ourselves, so haphazardly assembled _ .”

* * *

_ The Cryptonomica: Kepler’s home for the mystifying, morbid, and the Macabre! _

“Sidenote: gathers dust like a motherfucker,” Ned mumbled under his breath as his eye caught the small placard on the front counter.

He was alone. He’d always given Kirby Saturdays off but he usually came in to write anyway, sitting in the corner and typing away on his laptop. And yet, today he was nowhere to be seen.

Ned paused, and leaned against the counter, looking around. This room was definitely in need of a deep clean no matter what kind of fancy spin he tried put on the cobwebs and dust giving everything a more antique, authentic touch to every object.

The dust drifted through the air like a fog, highlighted by the sunlight coming through the window. He could smell the mustiness that tended to always dwell in old rooms. He pushed himself off the counter, and he heard the floorboards creak quietly beneath his weight. For some reason, he felt himself shift back and forth between his feet, listening to the soft sounds.

He opened his eyes, he hadn’t realized they were closed.

His gaze landed on a couple cardboard boxes by the entrance and he made his way over towards them, shaking himself from his daze.

Ned never would have taken himself for a man of deep thinking.

He hauled the two large boxes across the floor, pushing them along until they were by the counter, and ripped them open.

A bit of restocking was in order, something he hadn’t had to do for a long time.

The Cryptonomica seemed to get a little extra traffic through December, as people tended to buy their friends tacky cryptid-related gifts for Christmas, but after the holidays, activity in the store seemed to drop back down to the usual handful of customers per day.

Inside one box, were a few plush stuffed toys. One set of Mothmen, a set of Bigfeets, and a set of little Nessies.

“Cute and cuddly,” Ned said. “Just like me.”

He placed a few on the counter and a couple in the exhibits. He patted Nessie’s head gently. The sunlight bounced off Mothman’s beady red eyes.

“Indrid,” he nodded respectfully. “How’s it hanging?” He received no answer.

In the other box, was a selection of flyers and posters. Half of them for advertising the Cryptonomica, and half specifically for Saturday Night Dead. Both shared the dark color schemes with storm clouds drawn in a crude, cartoony style. He'd hand a chunk of the stacks to Kirby at some point. To be honest, he didn't know what that kid would do with them.

Ned looked around the museum one more time and deduced - yup, he was bored as shit.

Luckily, he recalled an invitation Barclay extended to him a little while ago, to come spend time at the lodge if he ever did get bored, and he had yet to take him up on that.

He grabbed his keys, and a couple flyers just in case.

Stepping outside and locking the door, he caught sight of the sunlight against the window. He could see dust speckling the glass panes and the windowsill inside. Yikes.

He turned to go find where he’d parked the van, casting one more glance at the window that hadn’t been cleaned in over a month.

As he walked, he mentally set a reminder for himself to pick up some Windex and some rags on the way home. He supposed it was called spring cleaning for a reason.

Sunlight kept finding its way to his face. Between the pines and through the glass window. Maybe it was an effect of the light, or the melting of the snow, but despite the cold, he felt as if the weather was already warming.

It had been a long, rough winter.

It had been a winter that left a lot of guilt in his stomach, heavy bags beneath his friends’ eyes. It had been a winter that the Pineguard would spend a lot of the spring recovering from.

His head seemed to remain deeply lined with thoughts like that - as it had always been - as he spent more and more time with the folks he so fondly cared for now. As he slowly drove the fifteen minutes up the road. As he parked the van in the small gravel lot of Amnesty Lodge and got out to wander up the wooden path to the door.

The afternoon sun slipped behind a cloud.

Ned entered the lobby, and his footsteps met the sounds of piano music and chatter. 

“Happy spring, lodge friends!” He called as he walked to the sitting area, “Isn’t the sunshine delightful?”

He found Aubrey alone on the couch, her nose in a book so big he didn’t know how she was holding it. Her eyes appeared over the book and she gave him a big smile and a wave when he turned into the kitchen. He could hear Barclay rattling around in there.

He walked in and saw Mama and Barclay’s tired faces. Mama was putting away groceries. Barclay was writing in a ledger (that Ned knew Mama had repeatedly told him he didn’t actually need to keep) and brewing some tea for a few mugs set on a tray. “Are we all okay here?”

Barclay nodded, still writing, and Mama hummed.

“You any good with lawn maintenance, Ned?” Barclay asked, grabbing another mug from a cupboard and adding it to the tray, meeting Ned’s eyes.

“Uh,” Ned blinked. “Probably not. Why?”

“The garden out back.” Barclay jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen window “I’m gonna try and clear it up one of these days. It’s all overgrown.” He quit writing and poured the tea.

“He’s literally repeatin’ what he said to me,” Mama said, sliding a bag of cookies across the counter in Barclay’s direction.

“I could get some benches down there, make it nice. Get a space somewhere to give Dani the garden she wants.”

“Well, that’s sweet,” said Ned. “Best time of year to do it.”

Mama closed the cupboards with a sigh. “Well, maybe - maybe leave it for a few weeks? Ain’t got nothing on whatever hunt’s comin’ up. We need to start being careful.”

“Ah.” Seemed like two weeks ago, the holidays passed and they were running through the numbing cold forest after bikes and goats. Now it was March and they’d have to do it all over again. “You’re right. It’s soon.”

“It’s  _ so _ soon.” Barclay ran a hand through his hair.

“I didn’t mean to stress either of ya,” Mama sighed.

“No, no, it’s fine. Let’s uh,” His hand dropped to his side. “Let’s have a Pineguard meeting tomorrow, and see if anyone’s seen or heard anything. I’ll go into town in the morning and… I don’t know, keep my ears open.” He lifted the tea tray and made for the doorway. “I’ll take these in there.”

Mama started to follow, but Ned put out a hand to stop her for a moment. “Are you alright there?” He knew that it was a question he wasn’t likely to get an elaborate answer to, but she looked like she was carrying a weight on her shoulders she hadn’t been earlier that week.

“I suppose.” She said, her hand resting on the doorframe. “We usually have somethin’ by now. Y’know what I mean? I guess I get a little bit jittery in these cases.”

“Understandable. We’ll keep at it.”

“Thank you.”

They heard Barclay talking in the living room with Aubrey and made their way in and took their seats.

“You’ve been absorbed in that thing all day.” Barclay said, handing Aubrey a mug of tea, which she took with a smile.

“It’s usually Moira reading that thing,” Mama said. Ned realized the piano music had stopped.

“It’s real good!” Aubrey said, sipping her tea and flipping back through the pages. She looked to be about two hundred pages in. Two hundred very, very big pages. “They have poems about space and history and all kinds of stuff.”

Ned looked at Barclay. “She’ll be writing her own soon.” Aubrey chuckled softly, and put her mug down.

Barclay’s eyes flitted to Ned and he shook his head and mouthed silently, “ _ All day _ .”

“Hm.” Ned sat back into the armchair like an old man. “What have I done today?” He murmured, “What did I do? Uh... hm. Oh, that’s right - jack shit.”

“You said you were getting deliveries.” Aubrey flipped back to the paged she was on originally.

Ned’s mouth spread into a grin. “Oh - hold on a sec.”

He felt the others’ eyes on him as he produced from his jacket - a small, plush, fluffy little stuffed Sasquatch toy with purple beady eyes.

“Just got in an order,” he stated proudly. “Do you like him?”

Barclay took it with a resigned sigh. “He… has my eyes,” he said with a tired smile.

* * *

Duck leaned back in his chair, and let it roll backwards on the wheels with a smile on his face. A smile that matched the ones that rangers Tara and James were trying to talk through.

“Uh, meerkat.” Tara said, her nose scrunched up as she laughed.

“Ah, shit. “ James dragged a hand down his face, wheezing. “Fucking… I guess. Maybe. Maybe a long time.”

“Imagine it. It’s wearing a helmet.”

“Why does it have a  _ helmet _ ?!”

“Everyone else gets one!”

Duck rolled his chair forward to bury his face in his crossed arms, trying to stifle the monster of a laugh that was trying to burst out of him. It had been like this for ten minutes, heated debates and loud laughter.

If something could be turned into a joke, and Tara or James were present, it definitely would be. James was a rambunctious goofball, and Tara was a giggly firebrand.

Duck still had his head down when he heard the sounds of their voices being met with the sound of the front door of the station opening and closing. They didn’t stop talking so the joke continued on. It was funny as fuck.

“Oh, a fucking giraffe. How ‘bout a giraffe?”

James’s voice responded full of malice. “ _ Tara, a giraffe would not survive in a war trench, what the fuck _ .”

“What on god’s green earth?” Juno Divine’s voice said, half shaking with laughter and pure bewilderment.

Duck lifted his head and saw her leaning against the doorframe, watching as Tara and James descended into laughter. “They’re, uh... Decidin’ what animals would survive in a trench.” He clarified.

Juno nodded and a smile crept onto her lips. “Alright.” She threw her jacket over the back of another wheely chair and sat herself down on it in front of her own desk. “Hard at work.”

There was a leaf in her hair and a little smudge of dirt on her cheek. Duck would have wondered whether she'd been dragged through a hedge if she didn't come to work looking like that all the time anyway.

He turned away from his co-workers and back to his computer where he was filling in a survey report, but he wasn’t really focusing. Most of his focus was trying to bury the weight in his stomach that reared its head whenever Tara named an animal. Whenever James snorted with laughter. When he’d looked at Juno for the first time that day. When he’d waved over at Ranger Kaida earlier that afternoon. When his eyes flitted over to the framed photo of the late Rick Dannen on the wall next to a map of the forest.

His only clue was a tree, he thought. A black tree in a humid meadow.

He was staring at his computer screen with no real motivation to finish this report. He wanted to listen to Tara and James make jokes. He wanted to make Juno a sandwich and have a chat with her. He wanted to call Kaida and ask her how her massive family was doing.

The phone next to his computer mouse rang and he almost punched it.

“Fuck -” he sighed and picked up the receiver and lifted it to his ear how people usually do with phones. “Kepler Forest Service station. How- Yes. Hi.”  _ Jesus christ. _

He heard Tara trying to keep more giggles from escaping. He wasn’t sure whether he hated it or not.

A man’s voice came through the receiver.  _ “Hi there, uh. My name is Daniel Moore. I was on a hike with my family through one of the trails in the forest earlier this afternoon. And we found something uh… a little strange, I think.” _

Duck blinked. “Can you… tell me what you found, sir?” He grabbed a notepad and pen.

_ “Well, we think that it’s a log. And some rocks and some tree roots. But they’re all kinda wrapped 'round each other? The ground looked like it’d been dug up and… filled back in. It kinda reminded me of when a tree falls down and pulls up its roots with it but… weirdly shaped and all disjointed. _ ”

Duck stifled his groan. “Okay, that - that does sound... strange. Uh -”

“ _ Also, I think that there might've been a mole’s den near it.”  _ Mr. Moore continued while Duck took down his words. _ “There were a few dead ones near this… log thing. It really upset my daughter. I thought maybe a ranger would want to come and look at this, it - It freaked us out a little.” _

Duck grimaced. “Well, thank you for calling. We’ll definitely… check this out, and see what we can do. Where in the forest did you find this, sir?”

Moore gave Duck the location he’d made sure of beforehand, which was very helpful, and the information that his wife had taken a few photos of what they had seen that she intended to email the forestry service if they required it.

They said their goodbyes and Duck put down the phone. Wrote some more notes and dragged a hand down his face. This was going to be what he thought it was.

He got to his feet. “Jeez…”

“You okay?” Came Juno’s voice again, and he looked to see her looking at him, Tara and James gone from the room.

The rays of sunlight missed her hair by an inch.

Duck bit his lip and scratched his face. “Uh. Yeah…” He looked down at his notes, and hated what he was about to say. “We have, uh… We have an abnormality.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shakes tambourine whilst kickboxing canon gently*
> 
> first, this chapter's soundtracks are:  
> \- Fifth Confluence by Austin Wintory  
> \- Little Green by Joni Mitchell  
> \- and The Spring by Sebastian Winskog
> 
> i've never really done this before, a long multi-chapter fic, but im so jazzed


	2. Dark as Trouble in This Heart of Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duck checks out the woods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Putting this one out now because I Want To Get Going™
> 
> This chapter's songs are:  
> \- Mistranslations by Rand Aldo  
> \- and Winter's Come and Gone by Gillian Welch
> 
> These songs are getting added to the [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3U6dgxlZjT5um5jN91B2ap?si=CpVWEHLRTEenIdWUP6hdoQ) as the story moves along bc i am a slut for Symbolism <3
> 
> tw small animal death

The service van’s engine whirred to silence. 

Duck sighed. He reached down to the foot space of the passenger seat, grabbed the heavy hiking boots and pulled them on. From the glove compartment, he got the forestry kit, locked the van and headed out for the trail.

He hated this. When Pine Guard business overlapped with his job.

Duck let the smell of the dew-misted forest lift his heart as he moved. The sun was obscured by the spruce branches for the most part, but the light was able to sift its way through. There was a songbird somewhere above him. He couldn’t recognize its breed from its sound, though. Juno would’ve been able to.

He pulled a small map from his jacket pocket, and found where he’d circled the thing's rough location. Mr. Moore had mentioned what he’d found had been near a stream, so he looked out for that.

Fern bushes began lining the path and Duck noticed a thicketed area a little ways down off the path to his right. He’d just about hit where he was supposed to be and once he stopped walking, he heard the stream he was looking for.

Gently, he maneuvered himself around the brambles and clambered down the uneven ground into what turned out to be a small grove. He took a step and made a squirrel jump and scamper up a tree, out of sight. With his feet, he pushed away a bramble that had got caught on his pant leg.

The sun disappeared behind a cloud and took the soft rays of filtered light with it. Duck looked up, then back down in front of him, and dropped his forestry kit.

It was almost like stitching in the ground.

A thick old log had been twisted around and gnarled; bits of the soil and ground were contorted and misshapen, looking almost madly braided around each other. Parts of the log were distorted inwards, and others kind of jutted out.

Tendrils of what looked almost like clovers - but black and lifeless - crawled over the log and onto the ground, stretching a few feet out. It looked like it had grown, and died after a few moments. He’d never seen anything like it. There was so much wrong here.

Duck warily moved further down the bank, examining what the log cast into shadows.

“Shit,” he said out loud. He lowered himself beside the stitch and the sights that sunk his heart.

Little dead moles. A few of ‘em. Scattered around.

“Poor little guys.”

Their den would’ve been _right_ where this thing attacked, and those dens run damn deep.

They looked so... drained. Their little claws looked almost gray. Even the young ones, whose claws were usually pink and tender.

Why would it kill a bunch of moles?

Something else caught his eye.

Splattered over one of the moles, Duck noted, and across the ground beneath the black clovers - was a substance. A thick liquid; black and clotted.

“The hell?” He turned and grabbed an inconsequential stick from behind him.

Poke it, he guessed.

He poked it.

And waited.

It did nothing.

“Cool,” he said.

He stirred it around. It was some kind of black sludge, all glutinous and pulpy and just kinda there.

“Cool,” he said again. He looked over at his forestry kit. He wondered…

He got up and grabbed it and knelt back down, rummaging through it. Looking for something to - there we go.

A tiny little empty plastic container.

“This ranger knows how to take a sample.”

He stopped, and looked in the kit again, frowning.

“...This ranger don’t have anything to get it in with.”

Ah well. He grabbed the stick again. He was wearing Beacon, if the sludge moved or attacked him he could just stab at it.

He transferred the… stuff into the container. It took ages, but it worked.

This thing had a hell of a smell, and he could not work out for the life of him what it was. It reminded him of the ocean, which he hadn’t smelled in years. It was briny like saltwater, with an earthy coolness similar to mint.

It was also pungent. Duck clipped the lid shut on the container.

He had no idea what to make of it but if this thing was from Sylvain, perhaps Mama or Barclay could use it as a lead to work with.

Bearing that in mind, he started taking notes.

Little bullet points for details of the stitch, the smell of the goop and the dead moles. He attempted a little crude sketch, not sure if it would help, but honestly; the real thing was crude enough that the drawing ended up looking pretty accurate to him.

He hoped most of what he’d found would help them, but he still had shit to figure out, and he wasn’t sure he could figure it out alone.

What did it? How is it able to distort the ground? Why did it murder these innocent creatures? What’s the substance it left behind?

Duck put his notebook and the sample into his pocket, grabbed the kit and stumbled back up over the uneven terrain and brush towards the van. The car was cold again when he got back in. Hazy chills of the forest stayed on his senses as he drove up towards the Lodge. Whatever that thing was, it wasn’t from the forest.

Which means there was only one other place it could have come from.

* * *

“Please don’t swing on your chair.”

Aubrey stopped swinging at Barclay’s request, and rested her feet up on the desk instead.

She looked up from the book. Barclay was moving about the cellar, arranging things and clearing up. Aubrey figured this was some kind of pre-hunt, Pine Guard meeting routine now.

He’d wipe down the whiteboard even though it was clean to Aubrey’s eyes. He’d put every book in sight back on the shelves, or change the order of them. Pull out Thacker’s old computer and tap his foot until it started up. He’d disappear and come back with tea or coffee.

He did all of this that day. The first two things he did twice. He also pulled from seemingly nowhere, a big map of Kepler and a big chunk of the forest around it, and rolled it out onto the desk. It was almost as big as the desk itself.

He then went to find objects to use as paperweights on each corner to stop it from rolling back up. So far, he’d used a cactus in a tiny pot, a rock and the tea tray. He turned away from the desk, looking for one more thing, Aubrey could tell.

“Here you go,” Aubrey closed the poetry book and placed it over the last corner.

“Ah, thanks,” Barclay smiled. He seemed satisfied with everything now. He took a seat and let out a big sigh. “So, how come you’re so enthralled with that book? I didn’t know you were a poetry fan.”

Aubrey leaned back in her chair. “You know, neither did I,” she said. “I think it’s probably that it’s Sylvain poets. There’s a lot of, uh... Similarities that it has with Earth’s poetry, kinda? But just like, _holding_ the book feels nice.”

“Hm. You know, they say doing a lot of reading out loud makes people clearer speakers.”

Aubrey nodded. “Ah. Well, I am but a mumbling fool.”

“Well, you’ve been reading it all out loud to me pretty well so far.”

She looked at him. “I have?”

Barclay stared for a second, then smiled again. “Aubrey,”

She cringed. “Yeesh. Sorry 'bout that.”

He shook his head. “Don’t worry, it’s nice. You’ve been keeping me calm.” That’s funny, Aubrey thought. It was usually the other way around.

She looked over at the book again, and saw… something. Something poking out of the pages further in than she had read. Like a piece of paper or a page gone loose from the binding. Oh God, she hoped she hadn’t damaged it.

She reached back over to it and opened it, searching for the place the paper was. She vaguely registered Barclay standing back up and moving to the little kitchen area.

The book fell open to reveal what looked to just be a little note. She pulled it out, not knowing how she hadn’t spotted it before. She read it.

_aubs you love this book so much. i put this drawing in it!! also the poem it’s next to reminded me of you. bye - dani_

Aubrey blinked. She scanned the page for the poem, making sure not to let the book fall from the desk.

_How strange._

_The youngest you will ever be_

_And yet, what haunts your mind_

_Are the oldest of troubles,_

_And the oldest of ghosts._

Aubrey froze. “ _Oh…_ ”

“What?” Barclay spoke up and made a little clattering in the kitchen. She jumped a fucking mile.

“Nothing!” She sat back in the chair, slamming the book shut and encasing the note safe in her hands. She told herself she wasn’t blushing.

Barclay just gave her an incredulous look, and went back to whatever it was he was doing.

Once his back was turned, Aubrey looked down at the note again. And turned it over.

She let out a tiny little gasp when she saw the drawing.

She was so used to Dani’s realistic, patented still-life style in her sketchbook, she was caught a little off-guard when she saw a little sketch of herself, Aubrey, in a rough, almost chibi-like style. She had a big smile, she was wearing her denim vest, and her body was surrounded by a cartoony flame.

She quickly folded up the note and held her to her chest, trying not to squeal. She pocketed it and tried to appear nonchalant, though her smile might have been betraying her entirely.

There was some creaking from the stairwell and she turned and saw Mama walking in, Ned Chicane in tow.

“Morning!” Aubrey said.

“Mornin’ sweetheart,” said Mama. “You look happy.”

Aubrey hummed and turned in her seat back to the table. Fuck.

Barclay began pouring tea like it was a gut reaction to seeing more than two people in one room. Ned made his way towards where he was seated.

“I got a call from Duck,” he said, “he’s on his way. He was working his morning.”

Mama sat down in the big chair. “Alright, that’s good. We need to get this going.”

They only had to wait another five minutes. The cellar door opened and closed and down came Duck, appearing in the doorway.

“Hi!” Aubrey leaned back on her chair to smile at him but Barclay gripped the back of it and pushed it back into place. 

“Y’all.” Duck walked in and immediately over to the desk, where he examined the map closely. He reached out a hand and tapped it in a specific area in the Monongahela forest, a little off the trail, next to a river.

“ _Thing_ ,” he said simply, pointing. “ _Thing_. I found a thing.”

Aubrey raised an eyebrow.

Mama sat up. “What... _thing_ did ya find?”

“Okay.” Duck straightened up. “Shit. Right, okay. I got a call yesterday...”

* * *

Ned was under the impression that there was tons of weird shit in that forest, but if Duck Newton could look at those pictures and insist there was something unnatural about it? Fair enough.

Mama was leaning on the desk, chin resting in her hand. She hadn’t taken her eyes off the photos of that… _stitch_ \- as Duck had described it. “And you - you think this is an Abomination?” She asked.

“I do,” Duck said, arms crossed. “It’s the only thing we got, and it’s a weird-ass thing to find over there. I don't like it. Also - either of you recognize this?”

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a little clear plastic pot, which he handed to Barclay who was sat in front of Thacker’s closed computer.

“What is that?” He took it into his large hand and looked at it against the hanging light in the cellar. It contained… a thick black muck?

“I wish I knew. It was thrown all over the place.”

Barclay went to pull the lid off, but thought better of it and put it down. He began typing on the computer and Mama began examining it.

“Didn’t the first thing we fought have a black sludge around it?” Aubrey asked.

Duck shook his head. “I don’t think it was like that, and it definitely didn’t… _kill_ things the way this one did.”

Aubrey nodded. “Poor little moles,” she said solemnly.

Ned scooted his chair forward. “Duck?”

Duck made that noise of response in the back of his throat.

“Will the forest service… leave this alone?”

His gaze wandered across the floor’s wooden panelling. “Oh... Probably. I gotta write up that report, so. I could maybe. kinda write it so they don’t go nosin’ around.”

“Criminal,” Aubrey whispered, eyes locked on the poetry book for some reason.

“And you didn’t see… _it,_ at all?” Mama asked, meeting Duck’s eyes.

“No.” 

Mama nodded and looked down again.

He stepped forward. “I’m - I’m sorry if this turns out to be… nothin’, but… somethin’ happened to these ‘lil animals, right? And I sure don’t see myself as an expert on… any of this, but…” His voice went quiet. “I’d - I’d like to think I know the forest. ‘N I don’t want this thing - whatever it is - goin’ around and hurting more defenseless creatures, or anythin’ else for that matter.”

“Don’t you worry yourself there,” Mama said. “I’ve no doubt you’re onto somethin’. It’s just a case of… gettin’ more information out of what little we have. Anything in those files, Barclay?”

Barclay was deeply focused on the screen, eyebrows knitted together behind a pair of reading glasses. He shook his head slowly and said nothing.

Aubrey sighed. “Okay. So, what’s next?”

“I think this is your call, Duck.” Mama said. “Do we stay ‘round the forest, or d’ya think it’ll move?”

Duck finally took a seat and rubbed his eyes. He rested his elbows on the desk and sunk deep into quiet thought.

Ned watched him, as he found himself often doing. Especially since winter had come, kicked their asses and gone. He’d known Duck a long time, and he knew that he carried himself in a certain way when spring touched Kepler. 

Plus? Duck operated differently on hunts that affected his forest.

Ned rubbed his hands together, his rings clicking together as they collided.

“We have no idea what it _wants_ , either,” he mumbled. “Why would it go for moles?”

Duck groaned quietly.

Aubrey leaned forward in her chair and sighed. “I hate this part.”

Ned patted her shoulder.

He hated it, too.

* * *

Juno was minding her own damn business, cooking some dinner, enjoying her evening.

She was throwing salt and pepper onto some potatoes when there was a clink from the bird feeder outside and a sudden, ear-piercing flitting sound darting around the kitchen. The shadow of a feathered creature zoomed by her head.

“Jesus _Christ_!” She dove to the floor and stayed still until she heard the flitting stop.

She looked over to where it had stopped on the tiled floor, near the dining chair. There it was. Just fucking chilling.

Juno gave the bird a disapproving head shake. Her throat felt strained when she laughed softly.

“I gave you no invitation, sir.”

And the melodious chattering of an Eastern Bluebird filled the room. Its wings and head were a soft, beautiful blue and its chest was a light rusty orange and pearly white.

It started hopping its way over to where she was slumped down against the kitchen counter, chirping and twittering.

She watched it peck at the floor for fallen crumbs. This had happened before.

Juno reached over and open the cupboard beneath the sink, and rummaged in the bird seed bag, pulling out a few small portions of grain.

“Is this what you - ?” She felt a soft weight on her knee.

At least she was wearing jeans and couldn’t feel its small talons in her skin.

“I’m not your perch, honey,” she sighed.

She stretched her hand out flat to give it the grain. To feed it from where it was on her knee, but it hopped up onto her hand to get at the snack.

They were digging in a little, but it wasn’t too bad.

She pushed up off the counter, careful not to shake the bird about too much. It finished off the grain, and she let it sit for a minute. It was so beautiful, all curious and colorful.

“You were clever to get in, weren’t you? Bit stupid, but good job.” She was glad she lived alone. Her family used to tease her for talking to animals. She could never help it, they were too expressive and wonderful not to chat to.

It chirped again.

“I _know_.”

It moved about on the palm of her hand as she carefully headed for the back door, leading to her porch. She clicked the lock and pushed it open. The sun was gone from the horizon, and she shivered with the soft, sudden cold.

She stood at the end of her porch, at the steps, and stretched her arm out far, then nudged her hand up in a quick enough movement to spring it to flutter away.

“Go, go!” And off into the trees the little blue feathered shape flew.

“Go to bed!” She whispered sharply into the night.

She went back into her house and finished dinner. She ate and did the dishes in the quiet, though she was sure a few times that she had heard an owl hooting somewhere in the distance. She sat on her couch and listened for it again, but it was probably around nine o’clock she stopped hearing it.

Now she was curled up on the couch, nesting in the blankets, living room lit by a lamp and the kitchen light. The television served as white noise in the background. She wasn’t paying it any attention, her mind was wandering.

She’d been at work this morning. She’d done a trail survey and run into a family with their dogs. She’d picked up trash for about an hour. She’d seen the photos of that… thing that Mrs. Moore had dropped by. The photos she’d gotten copies of and took home to examine.

The photos of a shape, that which no-one who had looked at it had been able to describe. The photos of something ranger Duck seemed so eager to avoid talking about earlier. The photos that carried a weight with them, that now she held them in her hands and stared, they were heavy with whatever that weight was.

Maybe it was the moles in the pictures, lying there.

She looked over to a small sketch drawing of a mole she’d done a few years ago, framed on the wall. She still remembered finishing that. She liked the sketch itself so much she couldn’t bring herself to drag ink over it.

Below it on the wall, was a watercolor of six butterflies. A more recent piece of work. She despised taxidermy but she loved how butterflies looked and painted them as best she could. She’d painted another set and given it to ranger Kaida, who loved insects, for her birthday. She’d gotten a big hug.

Juno looked back at the photos and sighed.

“Weird.” She placed them into the little folder she’d brought them home in. “Weird weird weird.”

She put them back on the table. The television still murmured on, and Juno’s thoughts, matching the pattern in the photos, continued to spiral.

They did so long into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whey hey
> 
> thank you for all the support with the first chapter!!


	3. Take These Broken Wings and Learn to Fly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ned spots something. Aubrey uses her Eye. Duck is given a task.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's songs are:  
> \- Blackbird (cover) by Chase Holdfelder  
> \- and The Chosen One by Vincent Brahn
> 
> [playlist!!!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3U6dgxlZjT5um5jN91B2ap?si=CpVWEHLRTEenIdWUP6hdoQ)
> 
> I think this is a chapter where I begin to see an improvement, as I get more comfortable to write and edit. I hope that if writing starts getting easier then I hope reading it does too.
> 
> tw small animal death

The door to the Cryptonomica van closed behind him with a loud clunk, rattling the metal cabinets. Maybe he pulled that shut a bit harder than he intended to.

Inside, it was dark and smelled like surface cleaner. Now that the hunt was upon them, Ned hoped to god that the spur of the moment decision to buy the van would be worth it.

He headed for the front, where he'd set up a tiny desk with a computer and some monitors, plus a radio scanner, which he definitely, one hundred percent knew how to use. He guessed it was all like working a car radio, or setting up the cameras for Saturday Night Dead. And he knew how to do that, somewhat.

He turned everything on and flipped switches and eventually the screens flickered to life. He’d affixed security cameras to the front and back of the van, keeping watch on Main Street, and a section of the treeline across the river behind the Cryptonomica. The footage stared at him like two old abstract paintings. These screens gave him headaches, he wasn’t really a technology fan - that was Kirby’s game.

Ned sighed as he took a seat in front of the desk.

Hand to his chin, he clicked through the footage. The best time to start is at night, he thought, rewinding the footage. He dialed back and kept his eyes on the tiny white letters in the corner of the screen.

_11 - 03 - 2019 00:41_

The night after Duck brought them what he’d found on the twist. That seemed about right.

Ned scanned through the footage, adjusting the playback speed when he thought he saw something. It was mostly shadows, the night vision and the audio on these things weren’t great. It was funny how he’d intended these cameras to be a _last_ resort, and here they were being his first.

He slumped back in his seat with a sigh. He had no idea what he was looking for. He mostly just watched for movement. If there was something to find here, he desperately wanted to find it.

Ned rubbed his eyes. He supposed he wanted to feel useful. _Time to get going_ , he thought to himself.

Ned always called himself a creative man and an insomniac. But if he looked at it, it probably wouldn't be the same as a man who worried, wanted something to do and took too many mental notes.

Maybe it was Barclay rubbing off on him.

In any case, he had a lot to make up for.

Wait.

_Wait, what the fuck was that?_

Something changed in the footage. In the footage of the riverbank out back.

“Hold right up -” Ned scrambled to sit forward and mess with the dial and the buttons.

He rewound the video and watched closely.

By the river, just emerging from the trees. In the ground. It looked like… a burrow or tunnel was being dug by an animal, with staggered movements, roughing the grass and ground above.

It was like a living pile of dirt. A molehill that moved.

It slithered into the moonlight from the trees and stopped in its tracks just before it hit water.

“Oh. Oh man.” Ned slowed the playback right down, and stared.

Like something was just moving and writhing below the surface. Just out of sight.

And then he stared even closer. Even with how poor quality the footage was, he caught what looked to him like a tiny flicker of light from below the dirt. It wasn’t big and brilliant and blinding, it was just a pale glimmer, for a second, and faint and obscured by the earth, and blurred by the video.

Ned watched this strange, murky shape sink back into the ground, crumbling in on itself. He got the feeling it was slipping beneath the water to cross into town.

He rewound the video and watched it again. It disappeared, leaving only traces of dirt and unsettled soil as it left. Everything else remained undisturbed. Nothing like the distorted and tangled shape Duck had found.

Next thing Ned knew, he was bursting out the back door of the van and landing on the concrete ground, and running around to the back of the Cryptonomica. Cool wind hitting his face and grass at his feet, he leaned against the wrought iron fence just before the terrain lowered towards the riverbank. He caught his breath, looking out across the river.

And he let the breath go, when he saw no evidence whatsoever of last night’s shadowy movement.

He sighed, hanging his head and staring at the ground. “Fuck.” He’d have to get Kirby’s help in printing off snapshots of the footage to show the Pine Guard.

The image of Duck’s exhausted face and his troubled eyes flashed in Ned’s mind. He looked over to the river, and tried to convince himself it usually had that shadow looming over it.

Ned hoped to god this was something.

* * *

Duck wondered whether he was a better liar writing than he was out loud.

He wondered that for about five seconds before he decided the answer was a doubtless yes, you idiot.

He was about to log the report into the records. He’d alleviated on the detail in the report, tried to keep it vague and uninteresting. He didn’t mention the black substance, and pretended the peculiar dead clovers were just a plant that had naturally black leaves. He only included a couple of the photos sent in, and they were the ones that contained as little information as possible. This computer was slow as hell, and wasn’t helping his mood.

He couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to dig back into this specific file, but still. He felt bad. He felt real bad about it. And real bad at his actual paying job.

Especially when his coworkers - one of whom he hadn’t forgotten that he’d seen unconscious in a vision - were chatting just a desk away.

James and Kaida were out cleaning a lake, Tara had her day-off, and Juno was in front of her own computer, gaze slipping every now and then out the window, across the evergreens.

Duck hit send, and let himself sink down in his chair, rubbing his eyes. Nothing else had come in about any abnormalities similar to the twist thing since the first phone call. It was always at the front of his mind the last couple days.

“Duck?” Called Juno’s voice. “You in there?”

His head shot up. She was standing over her desk with a file box in her hands. Her eyes were on him.

“Huh? Oh.” _Shit_. “Uh... Yeah. Yup.” He sat back up in his chair and tried to relax? Maybe?

“You got, like - like a stormcloud hangin’ over you.” Juno made her way towards his desk, holding a black document file in her hand. Her voice was low as she looked down at him with a furrowed brow.

“Somethin’ goin’ on? You usually look like this, if there is.”

The things he could answer _that_ question with. Monsters, trees, scary shit, visions… If he was allowed to say those things, in all honesty, he’d say them to Juno. Heck knows, she’d probably get a kick out of it.

Whatever it was that came out of his mouth was strained.

“Uh… Um.” He cleared his throat and grimaced. “All good. All is, uh… good over here.” He probably looked like he had sun in his eyes. “There’s… not a lot goin’ on. Gettin’ all antsy. Rather I’d be out there, y’know.”

Juno’s mouth opened, about to say something, but she chuckled softly instead. “Well, I -”

Something cut her off. A soft tapping sound, from the window by Duck’s desk.

Their heads swiveled towards the noise.

On the windowsill outside, pecking at the glass, was a bird. A small brown bird. It rapped against the window and fluttered its wings, hopping from side to side on the sill.

Duck felt his eyebrows fly up. “Huh.” That was funny. A little odd, but cute.

However, Juno’s voice was close to a whisper.

“ _What_.”

Duck assumed the question wasn’t for anybody. She sounded more perplexed than joyful about seeing a small bird outside the window.

Duck watched her stare - almost right through it.

“Juno?” She didn’t respond.

He tapped her on the arm. Her head snapped back towards him and for a moment, she looked flustered.

She let out a sharp sigh and headed past him towards the window. “Sorry,” she breathed. Seemed like Duck wasn’t the only one with a wandering mind.

“Are _you_ in there?” He grinned. 

She waved the black folder around by the window to urge the bird into flight. It took back to the sky after a second.

She spun back round to face him and sighed. “Yeah, I’m - I’m fine.” She didn’t look it, but he guessed he could say the same for himself. “Well, anyway. Uh - hopefully, when it starts gettin’ warmer - gettin’ a bit lighter - we’ll have some more stuff to do. It was... a rough winter.” Something dark drifted in her eyes.

He nodded, not taking his eyes off hers. “It was a tough one.”

They stared at each other for a while. The image of his vision; the saturated meadow and the unconscious form flashed in his mind. Duck pushed the dread down and stepped on it, and instead, wondered if Juno still felt the chill of the funicular train.

A phone rang, from what felt like miles away, but it was only from Juno’s desk. Nevertheless, it startled them both out of their own thoughts.

Juno immediately headed for the phone, shaking her head. Duck pushed himself out of his chair and threw on his jacket, clearing his throat. He grabbed his hat and made to log out of the computer.

But before his fingers made contact with the keyboard, Juno, for a second time, called his name.

* * *

The soft roar of a van halting to a stop sounded behind Aubrey, who stood a stone’s throw away from where Sheriff Zeke was hunched on the ground looking at the shape of this mangled tree, which stretched above and over the grass. Aubrey stepped towards the sidewalk, and waited for Duck and Ned to unclip their seatbelts and hop out of the Crypto-van.

When Aubrey had run across the road about five minutes prior to find a phone, Ned had been at the Cryptonomica and Duck had still been at work when she’d called them to rush down. Aubrey was on her way back to Amnesty Lodge after spending some time in town trying to find out if anyone had seen anything strange. Kepler’s main road was home to most of the small businesses in town, and on a clear day like this people were bound to be out and about. So Aubrey had spent the late morning walking around the neighborhood and darting in and out of shops, asking around.

Outside the post office, she bumped into Janice, the mail carrier, who only really had last month’s vacation to talk about. She’d gone to Italy, which Aubrey thought was tight. Leo’s store wasn’t so busy, so she was able to strike up polite conversation while she bought a snack. Still, he told her he hadn’t seen or heard anything odd.

Aubrey had stopped dead in her tracks across the street from the Sheriff Station, where she spotted Sheriff Owens hunched over on the grass, staring down a tree and scratching his head. From where she stood, she saw the shape of the tree as its trunk met its roots, and sprinted to the bar down the street to call Duck and Ned. One of Duck's co-workers picked up the phone, and Aubrey panicked and asked for him by name.

Now, Duck ran around the van's hood to meet her, footsteps thumping softly on the grass, and Ned followed.

“You alright?” Duck said breathlessly when he reached her.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Aubrey said. She lowered her voice to keep Zeke out of earshot. “I didn’t see it happen.”

“Alright, well. We in for taking the good ol’ annoy ‘n investigate approach here?” Ned asked, giving Zeke the stink eye.

“Aw, shit,” said Duck. “Yeah, I think so. We gotta get closer, I can’t see anything from here.”

Zeke just seemed to be taking notes from where Aubrey could see, before he turned his back on the tree and looked up to see the three of them standing there. Aubrey definitely saw his shoulders slump right down before he trudged over.

“Can I... help y’all with anything, or are you just watchin’?” He asked

“Hi, Sheriff Owens,” Aubrey said with a smile.

He blinked slowly at her. “Hello.”

“Listen, Zeke. You don’t mind if my, uh... ranger-tree-expert friend takes a look at that thing, do you?” Ned asked, even though Duck was already making his way over. Aubrey skittered around Zeke as he turned around, and followed after Duck.

Zeke, frazzled, held out a hand to stop them. “Duck, don’t go near it, why -”

Duck kept walking. “Nah, I’m gonna,” he said flatly. Aubrey then heard Ned pull the sheriff aside, putting what she assumed was the “annoying” operation to work.

Ahead, Duck was already crouching down and examining the tree.

“Ah… fuck.” He muttered. He took off his hat and sighed, eyes going heavy.

Up close to the tree, seeing the damage, Aubrey’s gut was overtaken with a feeling not unlike that of a mist rolling in.

It was a skinny tree with silver bark, and bare branches that looked like a thousand spreading tendrils. It wasn’t a tree Aubrey would call beautiful or ancient. It had yet to be touched by spring.

Its trunk was thin, and its roots - the few that were visible - were pale, and so horribly, and unnaturally twisted. It brought to Aubrey’s mind the feeling of running your fingers over a wicker basket, and the way the straw was weaved. Only… gnarled and wrong. Duck was right - it was like stitching in the ground.

Aubrey stared across the blades of grass. The tree wasn’t spectacularly tall, but it was strong enough to carry what was now strewn across the ground near the trunk.

Crows’ nests. Several of them, and the birds that had lived in them. All dead. Tiny, roughly feathered fledglings and a few adults dotted the ground, torn down with the scruffy nests and scattered around the area like litter.

Her heart broke.“This is - this is awful,” she said.

“This fuckin’ thing.” Duck was facing away from her.

“It… is it just going for the animals? And where they live?” She took another look at the bark of the tree. 

“It might be,” Duck shrugged. “But what the fuck does it want?”

A brisk wind blew by and the air swelled with a sharp oceanic scent. “Is this the black sludge stuff or some kinda weird sap?” Aubrey reached out for it, but Duck’s hand appeared and poked her arm, deterring her away.

“Oh jeez. Yeah. Don’t touch it.”

Zeke’s voice called from the direction of the sidewalk. “Can y’all get away from that, please?”

“ ’S just a tree!” Duck replied, eyes coldly locked on the roots.

There was a beat, and a heavy sigh. “Fuck, fine. Just watch your feet, with the - with the birds.”

Ned said something that Aubrey didn’t hear, his voice joining Zeke and Duck’s in sudden muffled obscurity. All noise faded to the background, as she allowed her Third Eye to open.

Purple took the place of the green grass at the tree’s base, and dark grey seeped into the pale white of the tree bark. A soft, deep violet shrouded Duck like a fog hanging over him, and Beacon glimmered similarly, a little redder in shade. The branches above didn’t change in color, neither did the small bodies of the birds.

Aubrey looked the tree up and down. The black sludge that spilled from the bark gleamed and sparkled a frosty white. There was nothing actually invisible, save for a faint pulse of light in a few of the roots at her feet. It flared bright and dim like the speed of a slow heartbeat.

The lilac and grey haze began to vanish as she let the filter drop when the sound of another vehicle’s engine rolled into earshot. Aubrey turned, trying to blink away the colors, to see the source of the noise was a Monongahela Forest service truck, which spurred Duck straight to his feet when he saw it.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he breathed, voice miles away, echoing around the walls of her head.

Aubrey’s vision staggered, like the light in the root. “Is that bad?” Hr own voice sounded like it was underwater.

“I - well…”

Aubrey watched as the truck rolled to a stop, and out stepped ranger Juno Divine.

Duck sighed. “This… this _is_ bad.”

Aubrey didn’t respond to that, distracted by a quiet humming sound. She looked back down at the tree. The pulsing lights. In the roots. It flickered faster and faster, brighter and brighter. The pulsing sound was scratchy and distorted. It could’ve been halfway between the sounds of industrial machinery or the sound of a bonfire. Aubrey’s mind could barely comprehend it.

She blinked a few more times, and her vision cleared, filling with grass, road, and sky.

“Aubrey?” Duck said, suddenly clear as day. "You alright?"

“Hey? Yup?” Aubrey said, shaking herself. “I’m good. Uh… Anyway, Zeke probably called her, huh?”

Over by the road, Zeke pulled Juno aside as she approached, he looked pretty done in from having had his ear talked off by Ned, who looked over to Aubrey and Duck and discreetly gave a thumbs up.

Aubrey saw Juno Divine in passing, some days. She always had the vibe of something warm and gentle. Here she was, clipboard in hand and hair spun into a braid over one shoulder away from her face, which held a tiredness that reminded Aubrey of Duck’s. But maybe that was just the matching uniform. She began walking over, eyes locked on the tree.

Aubrey was unsure of how to act. She’d been used to looking at strange happenings with the eye of a magical monster hunter, and here came the expert; with a mind finely tuned to nature itself - which could do some pretty wacky shit on its own.

She remembered with a start Duck once mentioning that Juno was an ornithologist. In her face, Aubrey saw pure heartache upon seeing the carnage at their feet.

“What... what happened, Duck?” She asked, her voice thin as a veil.

“I - I didn’t see this happen, I wish I knew.” 

“Okay, um…” She placed a hand over her chest and turned her gaze to the clipboard. “That - that tree, it -”

“ _\- wind_?” Duck blurted suddenly.

Aubrey elbowed him, it made no difference.

“Huh?” Juno said, turning her attention to him.

Duck had his arms crossed tightly around himself, looking very uncomfortable. “The - the y’know… the wind. The wind coulda done it.” Aubrey bit her lip to stop herself from cursing. Dear God.

“Duck,” Aubrey murmured. “Duck, _don’t._ ”

Juno shook her head. “Okay…” She had a folded up cardboard box behind the clipboard in her hand, and she brought it to the front, blinking quickly. 

“Guess we’d better -” she sniffed. “- clear this up. We don’t want any kids seein’ this.” Just behind Juno’s ear as she looked down, Aubrey spotted a small tattoo. From what she could make out, it looked like a silhouette of a bird, but was mostly obstructed by the pencil she had tucked there.

Duck was silent for a moment, the annoyance on his face seemingly gone. His eyebrows were drawn together as he watched her unfolding the cardboard box, and he stepped towards her.

“I - here, lemme - I’ll take care of this Juno, don’t worry ‘bout it.” He took the box from her. “You got gloves with you?”

Juno’s smile was tinged with gratefulness and pain. She reached into her back pocket and produced a pack of blue nitrile gloves.

“Thank you,” she said, a sad rasp to her voice that Aubrey could only just about hear.

Juno began to make her way back to the service truck, but Aubrey intercepted, skipping forward while Duck pulled on the gloves and began attending to the birds.

“Hi there, Juno. Uh, my name’s Aubrey. Hi -”

Juno pulled the pencil from behind her ear and started writing on the clipboard. Preoccupied, but still gave her a friendly smile. “Hi, Aubrey. Yeah, I know you. We spoke on the phone. I recognized your voice.”

“Oh, cool. Um, I wanted to ask you about the… tree roots by there? That isn’t normal, is it?”

Juno sighed heavily. “Well, as far as I know, Duck may have caught somethin’ similar in the forest just the other day. I don’t know if ya heard about that, but if you ask me, I… I mean, those tree roots are not… like anythin’ that I’ve ever seen.”

“And the birds? You've never seen anything like that?”

“Only when there's been some kinda illness goin’ around, which ain't often.” She shrugged. “Other than that, I…” She trailed off and her eyes shifted to Aubrey’s colorful vest, and the collection of pins and patches on it. Her expression turned soft, and she pointed to one small patch of a flag on the left side.

“Are you - are you Puerto Rican?” She asked.

Aubrey looked at Juno again, and saw freckles similar to her own.

Something very happy bubbled up inside her as she answered, nodding her head. “Yes!”

She felt as though Juno was mirroring her grin. “So am I.”

After a few minutes, the landscape was clear of birds and nests, all in the box now in the back of Juno's truck.

“Well, Duck,” Juno said, clipboard in hand, once Duck had put the cardboard box of birds in the back of the truck and made his way back over. “You were the one who took Mr. Moore’s report. Ya think it’s the same thing that caused this?”

Duck started speaking. “I… okay. Here we go,” and Aubrey squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the crap that was about to come out of his mouth. “Well, uh... The - the ground is - is different. So...”

Juno’s expression didn’t shift. “What,” she said fondly, no actual question in her voice whatsoever. 

“That’s one thing - y’know what I mean. This is uh, more - more open. And it’s uh - it’s -” He inhaled for about ten fucking seconds. “- _different_. For fuck’s sake.”

Aubrey saw Duck running his hands down his face and he violently sighed. Juno was watching him, lips pulled into a tight line, holding in laughter. She looked cheered up. As she shook her head, Aubrey spotted that the tattoo was in fact, a dragon; small and intricately detailed with a curling tail, done in plain black ink.

“Really?” Juno said, the corners of her mouth wavering. “You’re gonna leave that one there?”

“ _Yup_.”

“Okay, well,” Juno clipped the pen back onto the clipboard and sighed. “Thank you for helping me with the birds before… uh -”

“- No problem.”

“You’re a verbal disaster, and -”

“- I _know_ -”

“- And I’ll see you later. You hangin’ out with each other? You're technically off the clock, now, Duck.”

Aubrey nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“Alright, have a good day you two. Oh, and Ned.” She gave him a wave which he returned, and she made her way back to the truck. Aubrey could see she was grinning.

“Okay, bye,” Aubrey called out. “Sick tattoo!” 

Ranger Divine and Sheriff Owens split off in different directions, and Aubrey climbed into the Crypto-van with Ned and Duck.

“Right, so we got something.” Ned declared.

Duck slumped back in the middle seat. “We do?”

“Yes. Zeke told me that ten minutes before he showed up to that tree to check on it, Dewey apparently thought that he felt an earthquake. Some kinda shaking in the floor and walls. Very faint, very brief. Then Zeke headed out to the front of the station check if anybody else was around, or had gotten hurt - and there was the tree, just across the street.”

Aubrey blinked. “So… there’s a - this thing _shakes_?”

Ned shrugged. “Maybe.”

“I mean… it’s a start.” Duck said, looking pensively out the window as the van’s engine rolled into action.

Aubrey simultaneously felt as though they were deep into this hunt, and that they had yet to make any progress.

Ned offered Aubrey a ride back to the lodge - which her tired legs appreciated. And that ride was filled with the hum of the van’s engine, thoughts of baby birds, and side glances at a solemn Duck Newton at her side.

* * *

The metal sections of Beacon’s blade clashed against Minerva’s spectral weapon with a _Shink!_ that echoed eerily across the parking lot.

“Tell me,” Minerva said, voice strained with effort as Duck held Beacon firm in place to keep her blade from coming down on him. “How goes your latest mission, Duck Newton?”

Duck dove to the floor and butted the sword away, causing her not to stumble, but to allow him space. He steadied his hat.

He raised Beacon high and they continued their combat. “Well -” He took a deep breath. “Where to start? We got some kinda -“ _Clash!_ “- _somethin’_ targetin’ nature here. Got a bunch of moles, and uh - some birds. Ain’t goin’ for humans. Not yet. ‘S weird, we don’t really know what we’re doin’ with it.”

Minerva retreated back, flipping her sword over in her hand with expert dexterity.

“Duck Newton.” She stuck the blade of her sword down and rested on its hilt, taking a breather. “You have reminded me of something.”

Duck accepted the pause wholeheartedly, wiping sweat from his brow. “Yeah?”

“Yes. Lately, I have been researching the solar systems and their patterns with one another. And while -”

“- You were workin’ in the lab late one night?”

She stared blankly. “And while _doing so_ ,” she continued, ignoring him entirely. “I found something quite... strange of the connection between your planet and mine. Are you aware of the Spring Equinox, Duck?”

Duck blinked, the adrenaline of combat washing away.

“Um - I am… aware of it, yeah,” he said. He always forgot how advanced Minerva’s planet’s technology was.

“After I looked into what your Equinox does, Duck, I realized that while I have communicated with _you_ daily now for some time…” Her spectral form looked away for a moment. “How to phrase this without… _Hm_. I've discovered the possibility of you... not being my only Earthly contact, Duck Newton.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “Only… your only contact?”

“Listen. While I connect with you through an intricate string of mental patterns, I've found that there may be another entity available to me on a more… elemental pattern.”

“I… I’m not followin’, Minerva. Sorry.”

“You are my predominant connection, Duck, and that is a connection that _I_ placed; A connection through which I call to you. But upon speculation and investigation, I believe there may be another connection -”

She took a deep breath.

“Calling for _me_.”

Another chosen? Only… someone _choosing_ Minerva?

“Okay, this is… I - I _think_ I get it. Why - why are you telling me if - if you’re not even that sure?”

“I am telling you because I believe that unaccustomed connection is near to you.”

Duck blinked.

“It’s - it’s somebody in Kepler? Wait, back up - what were you saying ‘bout the Equinox?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve been looking through dynamics of the solar system, and events linking with…” She sighed, trailing off again. She sounded very much lost for words. 

“I have been feeling this call. I have been hearing it. I know it is from Earth, because it sounds almost identical to you. But it only approaches me when your sun begins to rise. That interrelation, between Earth and sun, Duck, has something… trying to break through it.”

“That is… a pretty heavy epiphany you got yourself, there.” Duck grinned, and had Beacon take his regular position around his waist. “And you’re sure that it’s a person? And not… somethin’ else?”

Minerva nodded her spectral head. “Duck Newton, would you… keep an eye out for this connection for me?”

“Woah,” Duck chuckled. “I - I… Man, I got zero idea what I’d be lookin’ for, but I’ll watch out for ‘em.”

“Thank you, Duck.” Her voice was soft, and she sounded somewhat satisfied. “Anything you find -”

She vanished, and the parking lot sunk back into deep twilight, absent of Minerva’s soft, cold light. Well darn.

Overshadowed, Duck stood unmoving for a minute, while his brain jumped from place to place. He was pretty baffled by what she’d told him, that’s for sure. He was having trouble visualizing exactly what Minerva wanted from him. She didn’t usually set him tasks or ask him for favors, so he had no idea where to start.

He turned on his heel and made for the stairs leading to his apartment.

Minerva had told him so much, yet so little. What was he meant to do with it? Watch for people who power up at sunrise like solar panels? Maybe he could ask Mama or Barclay. Maybe he’d just put “ _WANTED: magical nature sunlight person please and thank you - $10_ ” on the community bulletin at the front of Leo’s store and call it a day.

With a quiet creak, the door to Duck’s little apartment closed behind him. The last slicks of orange in the sky slipped below the horizon, and the filling moon wasn’t slow to follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big ooh


	4. Revealed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Pine Guard finally set eyes on their prey, as it reaches beyond Kepler's wildlife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's songs are:
> 
> \- Feeding the Flames by Steven Price  
> \- Lost Boys by Paper Bird  
> \- and Blessed and Beloved by Damjan Mravunac
> 
> listen to the soundtrack of Rattle [here!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3U6dgxlZjT5um5jN91B2ap?si=CpVWEHLRTEenIdWUP6hdoQ)

The start of the day was, in Duck’s memory, a complete blur. Mama had called him earlier to let him know about another Pine Guard meeting later in the day, to tell her and Barclay about what they had on the abomination so far. He was praying that is would take a load off the three of them, and considering pulling one of ‘em aside to ask about… sun… magic… folks. Who knows.

They were doing alright, Duck supposed. Overall, he’d been the one to find it first, Ned had found a few things out by asking people and checking security footage, and Aubrey had spotted it from pretty far away and was able to work quick and call them down. He wondered if anyone at the lodge had found anything. The days lately were laden with the weight of nothing and uncertain leads.

Around noon, he did a short patrol in a small sector of the forest, with a bout of unease hanging by, poking at him. He’d first found the abomination in the forest - it had been several miles away from where he was, but these days, just being in the forest set off alarms in his head, quiet as they were. 

He was scribbling his name in the register booklet, checking himself out for a mid-afternoon break, which he was a little late for. Outside the ranger station, Ned’s van - the Crypto-van, as Aubrey liked to refer to it - pulled into the gravel parking lot. He threw on his jacket and headed for the automatic sliding doors.

He paused.

There was a weird feeling in his head. The one that told him he was forgetting something, but not what it was. He sighed, the sound meeting the _whoosh_ of the automatic doors opening, and he glanced around the room as he zipped his jacket closed… nothing rang any bells.

The gravel crunched beneath Duck’s boots as he trudged towards the van, and through the windshield, he saw Ned give him a wave, which he returned. Wind rustled through the trees, swaying them from side as they brushed the clouded afternoon sky.

On the way to topside, Ned stopped for gas, and filled the tank to the brim.

“Jesus, Ned.” Duck said, “Where’re you goin’?”

Ned latched the nozzle back on the pump and chuckled. “Can’t be overprepared, friend Duck,” he said, tapping on the window at Duck’s side before striding into the station to pay.

Duck rested on his elbow, staring aimlessly out the windshield.

“You worried, Aubrey?” He asked. ” ‘Bout this one?”

He heard Aubrey heave a sigh. Her head was tilted back and she stretched out like a cat. The pins decorating her denim vest rattled softly with the movement.

“Well, I _was_ ,” she said. “I’m kinda hoping Mama might have seen something like this before. A bom-bom going after animals instead of humans? Like, I know we barely know anything about it but, it does kinda feel… I don’t know how to word it.”

He didn’t wanna say it. He’d no doubt jinx it.

“Kinda harmless?” He asked.

“Hm!” Aubrey nodded, and then gave him a nudge. “I think we got this - we usually get it,” she smiled.

There was a sudden mechanized crunch, which made them both jump out of their skin.

“ _Come in? Anyone available?_ " Spoke a muffled voice. Oh, _right_ \- his radio. He rolled his eyes. _That’s_ what he’d forgotten before.

“Goddammit,” he sighed, unclipping it from his belt. You weren’t really supposed to take these out unless you were working, which right now, he technically wasn’t. Aubrey watched intently as he lifted the walkie-talkie to his mouth.

“That you, Juno?” He said into the receiver.

“ _Hey there, Duck!_ ” She sounded quite pleased to hear his voice. He was pleased to hear hers.

“What’d ya need? Where are you?”

“ _I’m in my house,_ ” she said. “ _I found some of those photos you got of the mole den and took ‘em home to take a look at a couple days ago ‘n forgot to bring ‘em back in._ ”

"We're all forgettin' shit today."

“ _Yeah, you didn’t tell me it looked almost exactly like the tree yesterday, Duck._ ”

Something lurched in Duck’s stomach. He grimaced and he was pretty sure Aubrey facepalmed beside him.

“I… n - no,” he stammered. “I didn’t - I didn’t make that... there connection.”

“ _You didn’t?_ ”

“Nuh-uh.”

“ _It’s like… twisted in a real similar way. I -_ ” her voice quietened, like she was leaning away from the radio, and he heard some rustling. “ _\- Where the goshdarn heck did I put ‘em?_ ” She muttered.

Duck almost let out a snort, and cleared his throat.

“You alright over there?” He asked around a smile. From the other side of the van, Ned climbed back into the driver’s seat and tossed three candy bars into the cup holder.

“ _Yup, just -_ ” A loud creak, like a chair being pushed across a floor. Juno’s voice was strained like she was on her hands and knees. “ _I think they fell down somewhere… Um - oh, for fuck’s sake they’re right fuckin’ in front of me._ ”

He let himself laugh at that.

“ _Shut your mouth, dipshit. I found ‘em._ ”

“Ya got ‘em?”

" _Yeah, I got 'em._ "

“Good,” Duck glanced at Aubrey, who was giving him a big pouty smile. She pointed at him, and then made a love-heart shape with her fingers.

Whatever face he made in response, it prompted a shit-eating grin from Ned.

He glared at them. “What?” 

“ _What?_ ”

His eyes widened. “I... N - Nothin’.” Aubrey and Ned were snickering away whilst Duck scowled and shook his head. _Behave_ , he mouthed, his face going warm.

“ _Are you in a service truck?_ ”

“I’m… Nah, I’m in the… fuckin’... Scooby Doo Mystery Machine, apparently.”

“Hey!” Ned said, offended. Aubrey cackled.

“ _Is that Ned Chicane?_ ”

Duck stifled down a grin. “God… Yeah, it -”

“- I’m here too!” Aubrey called.

Duck groaned. “Just fuckin’ -”

“- _Oh shit, gang’s all there?_ ”

Duck clicked his tongue. “Yup. All here.”

“ _Aw, cool. Sounds like fun -”_

“- It’s not.”

 _“Right, I got these safe now. Uh, Duck, did you -?_ ” The radio suddenly stuttered, and Juno’s voice lagged.

“...Juno?” He said slowly.

“ _I - woah…_ ” She breathed.

“What's up?”

“ _Somethin’ - somethin’ weird’s happenin’._ ” Her voice slipped with alarm. “ _There’s some kinda… earthqua -_ ”

The radio cut out again, resumed, and Duck heard a muffled shattering of glass, and a rumble so loud it almost shook the receiver.

A dead weight dropped in his gut, and stayed there.

Aubrey’s eyes widened, and she whispered an “Oh no,” under her breath.

“Oh God, _shit_.” Duck gritted his teeth. “Juno? You there?”

“ _Yeah, I’m -_ ” More stutters. “ _I can - h - hear y -_ ” Another crunch, and the signal completely died.

He stared at the radio in his hand, and gripped it ‘til his knuckles were white. 

He held it to his mouth again. “We're - we’re comin’ to you alright? Hold tight,” he called, not knowing if she heard him. He slapped the radio a few times, panicking like all hell. “Fuck - fuck _fuck_!”

“Where does she - “ Ned fumbled around with the keys before shoving them in the ignition. “Where does she live, Duck?”

Duck, shaking, clipped the radio back onto his uniform and felt dread loading onto his neck.

“I’ll give ya directions, just start fuckin’ drivin'!”

* * *

_Years ago..._

An alarm clock’s incessant ring stabbed into her head and pierced her awake.

Juno Divine was seventeen, and cocooned up in her duvet. It had been a freezing night, and she seemed to have kept herself bundled up and cozy. Her tired brain observed that, with the sunlight pouring into her bedroom, the chill of the night had passed, and a warm and pleasant morning had taken its place.

Her arm extended out of the mess of blankets, reaching for the bedside table, searching for the alarm clock.

“Fuck -”

It stopped.

“- you.” She sighed, her hand retreating back into her sleepy nest. Her eyes opened and she nudged away some blankets to peer up at the ceiling. Sleep hadn’t left her body yet, for all she cared, she was a pair of eyes with a duvet for a body.

Birds chirped in the trees outside the house, and just in earshot were children laughing and running up and down the street, and big trucks rolling by. A few minutes passed. When they had, she was awake enough to register that… the birds were singing much louder than usual this time of morning.

Slowly, she pushed herself up and turned -

To find a goddamn _sparrow_ at the foot of her bed, one on her closet and several perched on her desklamp - all tweeting and twittering happily as if nothing was amiss.

Juno blinked.

“ _Why_ -?” The second the sound left her mouth, the birds all flew in unison to her bed. She recoiled back, squealing and covering her eyes with the duvet. She saw those things coming straight for her face.

This was ridiculous. Was she dreaming? Maybe they were like robot animatronic things, she’d seen something like that in a movie not too long ago. Maybe she was Cinderella and they were here to help her get dressed.

She slowly lowered the blanket from her eyes, and peeked out. There were five of them, hoppin’ about the mattress like they owned the place.

“Nah, you’re not robots,” she said, her voice muffled in the blanket.

She lowered it and dropped her hands in her lap.

“Y’know, this is where _people_ live,” she whispered to the one that hopped a little closer to her. “This is where the people do their - do their thing. You do yours out there.” She jabbed a finger towards the window.

It stared back at her with an intense curiosity, as if it was genuinely listen to the words coming out of her mouth. She was still half fucking asleep - _she_ wasn't even listening to the words coming out of her mouth.

Over by the desk, the window was open. She’d left it open through the night, cold as it had been. She usually did that in spring, before the bugs took over, but this… this had never happened before. Her mother always said birds seemed to follow Juno around as a child.

“Right,” she said softly, turning back to the little quarrel of sparrows in front of her. “We gotta get you out, ‘cause my mama ain’t gonna be… pleased if she comes and finds you. So, we’re gonna - _shoo_!” She climbed out of bed, the birds scattering away as she moved. Now, where was… Ah-ha. The big notebook on her desk.

“Okay, work with me,” she pleaded, and grabbed the book. “And don’t crap anywhere.”

It was like herding cats - as if herding garden birds was any easier. She waved the book around and shepherded them towards the desk, back by the window.

“Go on, scamps,” she urged. “Out you go.”

There was something very strange about how they responded, with the pure intention to do what she asked of them. It took a few minutes - there was one unruly sparrow who just did not want to leave. It was also being loud as hell.

Eventually, she got them all out, the last bird leaving her room and disappearing into the clear green of the pines outside. 

“Have a good day, I guess...” She gazed out as they fluttered around, perching on the garden fence before they took off between the trees, where sunlight cast through and flared off the glass window.

“No more break-ins!” She called, closing the window with a pull and rattle of the handle.

* * *

A flock of birds fled from the branches of a cedar tree on a quaint-looking house’s front lawn on Nelson Street. The birds fluttered high into a clouded white sky as the ground upon which the house stood began to shake. On the porch, a birdfeeder fell from its place on the wall and shattered to the ground with a _Clang!_ Wheat, split maize and millet spilled from the container and roll down the front steps, and down the pathway to the road. There, the Cryptonomica van pulled to a panicked halt.

Ned’s bones were tense as he turned off the van and jumped out after Duck, who was halfway across the lawn to Juno’s house by the time his own feet met the grass. He could feel it shaking from here.

He and Aubrey caught up with him, in time to watch him fumble with the doorknob before just kicking the door in. The house rattled with a furious intensity, the rumble taking a deep hold on Ned’s bones.

"Juno?!" Duck called, his voice lost in the rumble and roar of the walls.

Inside, the front room was dim. Most of the windows in this place were open, but it was as if this thing was stealing the light right out of the room. Like someone was fucking with a dimmer switch.

All three of them froze, as their eyes fell on the object a few feet in front of them, in the floor.

Four fingers and a thumb. Pitch black, made of shadows, with faint yellow veins running from its palm down to its wrist, where it disappeared down into the black fissure it seemed to have punched through the floor. The shadows were in the rough shape of a hand, its fingers stretching out and pulling back in a grabbing gesture. Shadows wisped around it, like it was trying over and over to form something tangible out of the blackness.

Ned stared at it in horror.

“What the _fuck,_ ” Duck breathed.

To his left, Aubrey sprung forward to avoid what Duck and Ned missed. The floorboards buckled and flicked up, as the foundation and dirt beneath twisted and gnarled.

Ned reached for Duck’s wrist, slipping on the floor and stumbling backwards, running into a wooden dresser. He bit back a curse, taking the brunt of the blow, keeping Duck steadier than himself.

Duck was shouting out for Juno, receiving no answer. Ned wasn't sure whether it was due to the deafening rumble or if Juno had stayed silent. Across the way, Aubrey stood in the doorway of the kitchen, watching the hand with great concentration.

A flame lit in the palm of her hand, which she extended out towards the Hand.

“Aubrey, watch your fire - you're indoors!” Ned warned.

“Oh, shit. You’re right." The flame extinguished, and she started looking around wildly, presumably for another approach. 

Duck sprinted down the unlit hallway towards a door. He seemed familiar with the layout of the house.

“Right -” Ned desperately searched his brain for any idea of what to do.

The Hand stopped its grabbing motion and turned menacingly slow, following Duck’s path down the hall. The shadows stopped spinning and began rising, like their collective focus was shifting.

“Hey!” Ned shouted at it, hoping to distract it.

Duck ripped open the door, and, through the shadows, Ned caught sight of Juno's form. Hunched over, forehead practically pressed against the carpet by the door. Anymore of her was obscured by the black fog. She looked almost paralyzed.

Duck grabbed her shoulder and gave it a shake, trying to get her attention. 

At Ned’s feet, the floorboards screeched and shot upwards, as if the Hand was trying to use them to sock him one. He came very close to getting smacked in the face a few times, and staggered backwards into a corner on the opposite side of the hall.

The Hand turned around to face Aubrey, who with a focused look on her face, extended her hands, which began glowing with a soft orange light, and conjured a strong wind, whipping it towards the blackness. Its fingers went stiff and the shadows began slowly rolling to the floor. It was making an impact, but the rumbling grew louder. Angrier. Artwork and prints decorated the walls surrounding him, and soon those frames were on the floor, falling to the floor, the glass covering a few of them smashing.

Alright. He wasn't making any progress cowering in a corner.

Ned leapt out of the corner in Aubrey’s direction, but his foot caught on a dismantled floorboard and he went flying forward, practically eating shit and finding himself face-to-face with the ghastly hand and which was now gaining form.

Just through the smog, he saw Juno. She had an arm around Duck’s shoulders, as he supported her weight through the hall, trying to avoid the Hand. Juno was moving almost… mindlessly. Her expression was blank and she looked halfway between in the midst of a daydream and totally exhausted. Duck was saying her name, and she seemed to be slowly snapping out of whatever had her so distant.

Ned saw Aubrey jump back over the hand, giving it the finger as she went, and threw more heavy wind at it from another angle. She then started yelling at it, enraged - he couldn’t hear her. He saw Duck and Juno stumbling out of the house, where it was safer, thank Christ for that.

Then all he could see was smokey blackness, and shimmering golden veins.

The darkness of this thing stared into his soul. It stared at him blankly, as if it wanted nothing to do with him. Ned was being thrown around on the floor with how much it was shaking, he was wondering how the roof wasn't coming down on their heads.

His shoulder bumped against the wall, and he slipped across the floor even closer to it. He had an idea.

“Ah, shit!” Ned squeezed his eyes shut, “Fuck it!”

He reached out both his arms and gripped the dark wrist with both hands, and squeezed the shadowy limb with as much force as he could muster. Whatever the fuck this was, he was angry with it.

Ned had never strangled anyone before, but he imagined it felt like this.

He opened his eyes, and saw the mist and shadows around the hand had been freed from its grasp and appeared to be sputtering and shuddering, its yellow veins squirming and bulging. This thing didn’t like it. He strangled harder.

He vaguely registered Duck yelling and running back inside.

“Ned, where's your fucking gun?!” He yelled, ripping Beacon from his waist and wielding him. Fuck, it was in the van.

The house creaked and wheezed around him, dust falling from the beams in the ceiling, but the rumbling was slowly quietening.

Duck looked between Ned and outside the front door. “Hey, uh… Ned, is your head being fucked up?” Duck asked loudly over the noise of the house.

“N - no! Why?!” Ned shouted back.

The magical wind rushing from Aubrey’s glowing hands ceased. “Alright, well, Juno’s seems a little fucked up!” She called, and bent over forwards, exhausted. 

Ned heard heavy footsteps approaching, and then Duck’s voice say, “Move your hands!”

He did so, and let go. The Hand trembled with relief, like it _had_ been its neck Ned had been strangling. Its shadows started to return.

Ned crawled back a bit, and was faced with the slick steel blade of Beacon.

“ _My turn, beast_ ,” he spat. Uncalled for.

The steel wrapped around the Hand’s shuddering wrist and thumb. Beacon’s teeth were gritting in a malicious snarl, glinting in the light that was slowly pouring back into the room with every shot and stab they took at this thing.

For a few seconds, the shadows stilled. The Hand stilled. The quaking around them reduced to a low rumble.

And then the house screamed.

The Hand closed its fist, and the room began to change. It disappeared from view, below the ground, and the floorboards started to turn like a whirlpool in the ocean. At the last moment, it was intangible, and slipped from Beacon’s grip completely, darting into the darkness it stemmed from.

Ned felt Duck yank him to his feet by his jacket, and he stumbled around back towards the door.

Aubrey’s hands still glowed softly. “What the hell is it doing?” She asked, then narrowly sidestepped out of the path of a floorboard almost hitting her in the face. Ned took her arm and pulled her towards the door, they had to get out before the house actually came down.

Duck stood, Beacon still in hand, watching. He stood just out of the shadows, and just in front of his partners, holding fast like a barrier between them. Ned grimaced as the creaking and drumming and shuddering of the house bit sourly into his senses.

The shadows were swirling, and then followed after the Hand disappearing into the black fissure in the ground. A pulse, and Duck was flung backwards off his feet, straight into Ned and Aubrey in the doorway. The wooden floorboards curled around the darkness, erratically stitching up the hole, with an outburst of dirt, dust and black, oceanic-smelling liquid.

They all fell outside into a heap on the front porch. Ned pulled himself up by a fence that felt like it was about to collapse. They rushed away over to where Juno was curled up on the grass.

Ned looked back saw the light pour back into the house before the door slammed shut. He saw the house just barely withstand the horror within.

And he saw Juno _watch_ as her home ceased to shudder, as the light in Aubrey's hands extinguished, and as Duck's metal sword slithered around his hips and clipped into a belt. She looked about ready to faint.

It got quiet. The Hand was gone and the scene was shadowless.

Ned’s ears were ringing. The sky was still clouded, and afternoon air and faint birdsong filled the world.

Juno was on the ground, her hands over her eyes, shaking. Realizing this, and everything she saw, and the possible consequences, Ned looked at her with remorse weighing on his chest. Aubrey was at his side, worn out, staring back at the house.

Duck reached down and offered a hand to Juno.

Emotion after emotion drifted in her eyes as she unthinkingly took his hand. She opened her mouth to talk several times, but no sound surfaced. Her breathing was so erratic she looked like she was shivering.

Duck pulled her to her feet. She was wobbly, frightened, and well and truly rattled. “Hey, hey - look at me.” He watched her face, with all the intent of someone who had been a radio call away from losing a good friend. “You - are you still there?”

Juno nodded wordlessly, holding both Duck’s arms and leaning on him to steady herself. Ned and Aubrey approached and saw tears.

“I will - I will explain everythin’, okay?” He said, softly. “It's gonna take forever, but I will, I promise.”

Juno turned her head to look at her crumbling house again, but Duck didn’t take his eyes off her, not knowing what else to say.

“Did it _run_?” Aubrey asked, staring at the house.

Ned stepped forward. “Uh, Duck?” Duck looked up at Ned as if he forgot he’d been standing there. “People are gonna come... investigate soon. We might wanna get out of here before anybody sees us.”

“ _Duck_ ,” Juno's voice was barely a croak from Ned could hear her.

Duck looked lost, then looked at her, and took off his hat.

“Alright,” he said decisively. “No lies. No nothin’. We’re gonna-” He waved his hat in the direction of the house, “Were gonna - we're gonna figure this shit out, we're gonna try and fix it. But we gotta get out of here and somewhere safe, okay?” 

Juno let out a shaking breath and looked back at the house. “How - how are we gonna _fix_ that, Duck?” Ned felt a stab to his heart.

“Let’s -” Duck guided her away from the wreckage, towards the car. “Let’s go before folks come ‘round askin’ questions, okay?”

Juno let herself be guided into the front seat and Duck stayed there with her, while Aubrey climbed into the back. He turned on the car and started up the road towards topside.

Ned caught sight of the small, quaint house that looked like it was about to come down in the wing mirror. And beside him, sight of Duck holding so securely in his arms, the person it had belonged to.

* * *

Juno staggered out of the van, took one look at the sign reading " _Amnesty Lodge_ " and shoved her hands over her eyes, shielding herself from everything for a second. In a big way, she felt like reality was slowly returning to her. This was a dream. Somehow, this was definitely a dream. Or some twisted joke. Shit like this only happened in that Black Mirror thing her sister watched, not real life.

Nothing her erratic thought process told her explained what had happened… Juno wanted to say it was her mind - but she felt unsure about even that. Maybe it was the shock of the earthquake doing it, but then what in hell was that thing in the floor?

Juno was gonna have someone's hide, she didn't know whose, but she was gonna have it.

She heard soft footsteps around the van, and then Duck’s voice. "Juno -”

" _\- Don't_."

She was angry and scared, and however sweet these folks were being, it didn't change the fact they knew shit they weren't telling her. They’d driven her to the complete opposite side of town, to this lodge she’d never been to, buried into the mountain.

Her hands left her face, and she adjusted back to the evening light.

“I need you to tell me what I’m doin’ here, Duck.” She was still shaking. 

“I - I can’t really do that,” he said. Behind him, Aubrey rushed into the building. “But I promise, it’s all just - just through those doors there.”

When Duck wasn’t lying, he had a look to him she loved, but for now that look was clouded in her mind with questions. Questions that wanted answers before they left her lips.

He wasn’t lying, but he knew truth kept from her.

She didn’t mean to glare at him as she went by, but she did. She made her way up a wooden-plank path towards those front doors, and Ned jogged in front to get the door. She was eyeing the only other vehicle in the parking lot - a big, dark red truck, all muddied like it’d been rolling right through the woods.

Inside, Aubrey walked back in Juno’s direction, and lead her to the lodge’s lobby. A big and beautiful cozy room that reminded her of cabins she stayed in at summer camps when she was young. Her footsteps carried loud on the old floorboards, there were carved signs directing to a kitchen area and to some hot springs, and every doorway Juno could see seemed to lead somewhere similarly lit and similarly homely. This building felt handcrafted, and very much loved.

“Okay,” Aubrey said, gesturing around. “Here we are. There’s no need to be scared, okay?”

“Weren’t you… holding _light_ before?” Juno asked, as they reached the center of the lobby.

Aubrey nodded, flashing a smile. “Yes, exactly.”

There was a rustle from the direction of the kitchen, and outstepped a tall, muscular man with long hair tied away from his face. He looked… desperately familiar. Aubrey was beckoning him over.

When he set eyes on Juno, she could’ve sworn he went white as a sheet. At his side, was a boy with shaggy blond hair and bright blue jacket, and a tall woman in a long coat... holy _shit_...

" _Maddie -?_ "

She marched towards Juno and hurriedly spoke.

"- _Well_ , I hope you're okay there. You can call me Mama.” She took Juno’s hand and put an arm around her shoulders. “ ’S nice to meet you.”

Juno’s head started spinning faster with questions. All she wanted was to turn around, run out of this building and into the woods, where she understood things.

“O - okay?” She said, not really aware she was saying it.

“We came into contact with it,” Ned said, crossing his arms. “At her home.”

Mama nodded, then gave Juno a thoughtful look.

“You've been… mixed up with us before, haven't you?"

Juno didn’t know what to say.

“I - I have?”

Mama nodded once more and gestured towards the couch. “Wait here for a minute. Barclay’ll bring ya somethin’.”

Barclay. The name echoed through Juno’s mind like a quiet guitar ringing out. She knew it. Why did she know it?

“Y’all look like you went through hell,” Mama continued. “Gimme a second." She was probably right, Juno, Duck, Aubrey and Ned were all covered in either a little or a lot of dirt.

Aubrey sat on the arm of one of the couches. Juno leaned against the wall and dragged her hands down her face. That rumble was embedded deep in her mind. Even in this warm, rustic, friendly-feeling lodge, it didn’t want to leave. Mama had disappeared into the kitchen with the tall man following her. Juno heard hushed voices coming from that doorway. 

It was like a fucking puzzle, trying to piece all these faces and names into one image that could make any sort of sense. She was getting the unmistakable idea that the people in this building were harboring something very… out of place, and somehow she’d been stood in front of a set of doors that burst open and pulled her into all the madness.

Duck was looking to his side at Ned, the two seemingly communicating through stares. The quiet of everything made her feel only a little bit worse.

The boy in the blue jacket sauntered by and gave Aubrey a thumbs up as he headed towards one of the doorways off the lobby, where a frantic voice called from the guest wing.

“Hey, come back!”

From that direction, a big, white, fluffy rabbit came running. Following behind, was a girl with long blond hair bound in a beautiful braid, chasing after it. That was… quite heartwarming.

“Hey, Dr. Bonkers!” Aubrey got to her feet and spread her arms to greet it.

Except the bunny straight up ignored her, and darted over to Juno instead.

“Woah, hey!” 

It clambered all around Juno, over her feet and darting around her legs, sniffing her and squeaking, with a vibe more of an excited puppy rather than a domesticated rabbit.

Juno let out an awkward chuckle. “Hey - hey there.”

"Woah..?" Aubrey said, "He doesn't usually act like this. Ever.”

Juno reached down and gently scratched the bridge of the rabbit’s nose. He stopped dancing around and rested his front paws on her knees, and relaxed to the touch.

It was like a little therapy animal, soothing away the anxiety and filling her senses with softness. 

“Is he yours?” She looked at Aubrey.

“Yeah, his name’s Dr. Harris Bonkers,” she said, sitting back on the couch. “He likes you.”

Juno ran her hand across his ears and back, smiling. “He’s a good boy.”

After a few more pets, the blond girl came over and scooped him up and took him back to the guest wing, flashing Aubrey a smile. 

“Alright,” came Mama’s voice as she reentered the lobby. “Juno, you busy? You got anywhere you need to be?” Juno only then noticed the big scar on the left side of Mama’s face.

Juno stared and combed through a million prospects in about three seconds; Having to face a half-collapsed house. Rebuilding. Paying people to fix the floors. Emailing and writing relatives trying to explain what had happened.

She let out a trembling breath and shook her head.

“N - no… I - I don’t think so,” she said, glancing briefly at Duck beside her.

“You mind comin’ with me for a little bit? You need an explanation.” She then turned to the taller man 

Juno sighed, took Mama’s offer and let herself be directed towards a stairwell.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” Juno said, as Mama placed a hand on her shoulder.

“I know,” she replied softly, and stared straight ahead, a dark look on her face. “Let’s getcha up to speed.”

* * *

In the same lobby, just an hour later, a tea tray was placed gently on the coffee table. It was getting dark outside, and Aubrey felt the need to switch on all the lights in the place right that second. It was kind of tough to read in this light, but she was managing it.

Mama had taken Juno to her office, alone. Duck had tried to follow, but she’d held up a finger and pointed him back to the couch. The dude seemed pretty dejected, and really worried about Juno. He’d reluctantly slumped down into the couch beside Aubrey and stayed there, staring up at the ceiling.

“Coffee, Duck?” Barclay asked, nudging the tray in his direction.

“Oh shit,” Duck blinked a few times like he was jolted awake from a nap. “Yeah, yes please. Thanks.”

Aubrey broke away from her focus on the poetry anthology - she was almost halfway through, she was super proud of herself - to reach over and grab a cup.

“Thank you,” she smiled, and settled back into her spot.

“ ‘S all good,” Barclay dragged a hand through his hair, and sat on the couch beside Ned, who reached over and gave his shoulder a nudge. They’d been waiting a while, unsure if Mama was gonna be done explaining everything to Juno. Aubrey was trying to think back to when she herself first arrived in the lodge last summer, and how Mama had told her everything. She ran her fingertips up and down the cover of the poetry anthology in her lap.

"Bless her heart," Ned said, under his breath.

Barclay sat up a little straighter and rubbed his hands together. He then spared a glance around the room, checking for guests, then leaned in closer to them. “Did you guys - did you guys see much of the Abomination?”

Duck hummed affirmingly into his coffee cup.

“We did,” Aubrey said, resting her hand in the dip in the pages of the book, . “It was like a… hand. Coming out of the floor in her house.”

“A _hand_?” Barclay asked.

Duck nodded and put the cup back on the tray. “Yeah, it was all black and had this… kinda mist around it.”

“And it had these gross yellow veins,” Ned said, visibly shuddering.

“How close did y’all get to it?” Barclay’s eyebrows furrowed gently.

“ _Too_ close.” Duck’s gaze latched onto Ned, who flexed his fingers and inspected his hands for dirt.

Barclay looked between each of them, and exhaled a deep sigh, scratching at his beard. “Well, we have to get out another meeting soon, now that you have more to go on. We can try tomorrow, or… the next day, if... Juno is up for it. She might be useful to have around.”

Duck said something else, but Aubrey missed it when her finger skirted the corner of an out of place piece of paper. She looked down to the book, and read the heading for the next poem.

_The Handsome Hare of Hagridden Hill._

The illustration beside the poem was of a tall, hook-shaped grassy hill with a tiny silhouette of a house at the top. And sitting beside that, was a little sketch of Dr. Harris Bonkers, done in blue pen, on what looked like a receipt.

In the drawing, he was sitting proudly upon a stack of books, with some roses surrounding him, and a monocle over his eye.

Aubrey raised the coffee cup to her lips and took a big sip to hide her smile. With her free hand, she carefully and discreetly folded up the drawing and put it in her pocket, like she had the one from a couple days ago. She’d found a few more tucked in between the pages when she was reading just before bed last night. She had no idea when Dani was finding the chances to stick them in.

Barclay lifted his wrist and checked his watch. “They’ve been quite a while,” he said.

Ned put his empty cup on the tray with a _clink_.

“Alright,” he said, pushing to his feet and stretching. “Should we make a move then, pal?”

No one said anything. Ned was looking at Duck, who was looking off into space, holding the coffee cup in a death grip.

“Hey,” Ned poked Duck’s shoulder, and he jumped like he’d been electrocuted.

“ _Sh -!_ Uh… huh?”

Ned smiled. “I said, should we make a move?”

“O - oh. Uh… no, I’m gonna - I’m gonna stay.”

Ned raised an eyebrow. “You don’t want a lift?”

Duck awkwardly placed his own cup on the table, then shook his head. “No, I’m… I’m gonna wait for her.”

Ned nodded and glanced at Aubrey, with a sweet look in his eye. She returned it.

“Alright. Well, if you call me, I’ll come and get you.” Ned gave Duck’s arm a pat.

“Thanks.”

“Night, kids,” and with a salute, he turned and made his way out the main doors.

Soft silence carried through the room for a while, as it had for the last hour.

Barclay gathered all the cups onto the tray and lifted it from the table. He stood and turned to Duck.

“D’ya think Juno’s gonna go home or sleep here or..?”

Duck thought for a second, and shrugged tiredly. “I don’t - I’m not sure.”

“Okay, I’m gonna grab her a room key, just in case.” Barclay stepped carefully around the couch and headed for the kitchen, and it was just the two of them. Somewhere, Aubrey registered the kitchen light flicking on.

Aubrey watched Duck as he fiddled with the seams on the couch armrest, slumped into the cushions. He’d gone to the bathroom earlier to wash some of the dirt off his face, but there was still some speckling his hands and shirt, and a little brushed by his eyebrow. 

She was looking at Duck now, in the dim light of the lobby. His face crumpled in that same weariness he always wore, but now it felt multiplied. His blinking was slow and often, and Aubrey was thinking maybe he could slump a little further into the couch and fall right asleep.

The exhausted man stared into his lap, and his voice came tired and small.

“I _really_ thought it was just animals…”

So had she. Moles, crows, and Juno Divine… It wasn’t adding up. Not yet anyway. What did this thing want? Was it succeeding? Why was it killing? It had killed everything it touched. If they’d been too late to the house, would Juno have…?

Aubrey bit her lip. Juno, who Aubrey had now seen under the cloak of a nightstorm, and lied to her face. Outside a funicular station, knee deep in snow. And now herded into a lodge full of unfamiliar magic after watching her home nearly crumble to the ground. The face of a woman with a flitting mind.

There was something about that woman...

* * *

The noise against Juno’s head had reduced. It was quiet, and her head was filled with words. Mama’s voice was deep and heavy, however hushed she was trying to speak.

Mama made her way back over to her chair, after closing the blinds and switching on some lamps. She rested her hands on the desk, and the wood of the chair creaked gently.

“You deserve a hell of a lot more information than I just gave you,” she said. “But I think for now, it’ll do. You’ve been through enough.”

It had felt like a lecture. Not in a boring way, but like a history lesson for why Amnesty Lodge was standing, what and where Sylvain was, and the differences between the things coming through the… gate, and the folks living at the Lodge. Mama probably wouldn’t have talked for as long as she did, had it not been for Juno asking questions. It was funny, how the more information she was given, she felt as though she understood less.

Juno was quiet now though. The reality of it all struggled to settle in.

"This ain't like a group of friends gettin’ their cameras and hiking gear and lookin’ for monsters out in the woods,” Mama said. “This is… having to deal with things that can tear up a waterpark or kill all manner of things without remorse. It's terrifying.”

Concern drew Mama’s eyebrows together.

"And you've seen it now, haven't you."

Juno thought back. It had been… horrible.

She’d heard a sound that reminded her of trees creaking in heavy winds, only it was so loud and guttural she’d thought it was a scream. Then the edges of her vision were masked with a swirling black smoke, and she’d collapsed to the floor in the living room.

"I felt like my brain was… bein' drained,” she explained. “Like when you wring water out a wet towel? Y'know?” Mama cringed a little, listening and rubbing her chin.

Juno continued. “Then it's kinda… uh - a blur. I remember… gettin outside ‘n the light fuckin _killed_. I - I didn't…"

She trailed off, staring down at her hands, thinking further. The ghost of a migraine teased at her mind, its nauseating memory clouding her insides.

Mama held out a reassuring hand. "You don't have to go diggin' just yet, honey. There's a lot goin’ on here for you to learn about in your own -"

"- I forgot what _grass_ was…" Juno said softly, staring into space.

"You for - you forgot?"

Juno nodded, and met Mama's eye. "I looked at it and I thought… _what the hell is that stuff_ ? And then it was when the house stopped, like, shakin' that I kinda woke up and… I was just cryin'. And _Aubrey_..."

Getting out of the house and onto the lawn had felt like breaking out of darkness into sharp white light. Juno realized, in Mama’s office, that for a few minutes, the only things Juno knew existed were a deep rumble lodged in her brain, the image of a lost house, and the form of Duck Newton. Her head had snapped awake from it after what must have been about ten minutes of driving, and she was furious. At what, she couldn’t at this moment recall. She’d spoken with Mama for quite a while.

The older woman crossed her arms. "How much damage did that thing do?"

Juno slowly shook her head, Mama was peering across the table at her. "I don't… I don't know." 

Mama looked… heartbroken, but in a strange way. Her eyes darted around the table like she was solving equations in her mind, and every answer she got was bad news. 

"What aren't you… _tellin’_ me, Mama?" 

She was staring at the floor, like there was something invisible there. She was quiet for a while, and Juno picked up the faint smell of woodsmoke, like the hearth downstairs was just lit.

"There's… history to Kepler,” Mama said. “And a history to where that monster came from. I've been tryin’ to figure it out for thirty years, and I’ve had folks helpin’ me out with it and…” She fell silent again, like it was a battle choosing the words.

“Now _you’re_ here, and it’s…”

Juno gave her a half-hearted smile.

She’d never been that close with Mad - _Mama_ \- before, only seeing her in passing a couple times, but she’d heard a lot about her. For a moment, Juno wanted to believe it might be the same in Mama’s case, given the trouble she was going through trying to articulate all this.

But Juno thought she was following it all okay.

Monsters are real. Juno didn’t think she was foolish for believing that when Mama said it - and if it _was_ foolish, she might as well play along.

Mama checked the small ornate clock on the wall, beside an oil painting of a mountainous landscape. Juno wondered where it was, the peaks were too rocky and jagged to be Kepler.

"Well,” Mama said. “We've talked for ‘bout two hours now -"

"- _Shit_ , really?" Her hand flew to her mouth. “Sorry.”

Mama fondly rolled her eyes, and sighed.

“There’s a lot more to do, and as you’ve probably worked out, this _Hand_ thing is… somethin’ we gotta figure out how to get rid of.”

Something sour pulled at Juno's lip, but she gave Mama a nod.

“Good, okay. And the secrecy thing?” Mama looked at her. She was calm, but her eyes expressed urgency. “Ya can’t tell _anybody_ , Juno.”

She figured that. “I - I promise.”

“You’re takin’ this quite well,” Mama remarked, slipping her finger back and forth, her fingernail catching in a divet in the desk. “A lot like Aubrey did.” 

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, she was… I guess, ready for it."

"I -" Juno almost laughed. "I would _not_ say that I’m ready for this."

"You _are_." She looked… certain.

Mama sighed. “You let me know if you need anythin’, alright?”

“I will. I…” Juno smiled, but then her eyes widened. "Oh no, I can't… I can't go back to my house. Oh, Christ." She slumped down in the chair, ‘til she was almost horizontal, rubbing her temples.

"Hey, if you need a place to sleep, you got one here. I don't charge."

Juno looked at her wearily from nearly below the desk, an eyebrow raised. "You don't charge?"

"Well, I charge Stern."

Lamplight drifted over Mama’s wry smiling face, and the rest of the room was dim. Little sculptures and trinkets cast strange black shadows up the walls, and muffled footsteps and soft voices drifted through the floorboards to Juno’s ears.

Out the window, she caught sight of a dark sky losing its last murmurs of indigo as evening slipped into night, through the silhouettes of trees swaying in the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL WELL WELL
> 
> THANK YOU FOR READING !!


	5. I’ll Bloom by Day, I’ll Bloom by Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Juno finds a place to rest. Aubrey shares a piece of Sylvain. Duck has some explaining to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS A LONG BOY
> 
> long boy's songs for today are:  
> \- Nocturne by Trevor Kowalski  
> and I have Considered the Lilies by Connie Converse

Duck’s world, for a moment, was an unfamiliar couch, a woven blanket, and the crinkled discomfort of a night spent in uniform. There was a dark dream edging away from his mind as he awoke, and a large hand shaking his shoulder. He turned, and squinted over his arm for his eyes to slowly focus on Barclay.

“Mornin’, soldier,” he said, too brightly for… whateverthefuck time it was.

“H - hi. What -” Duck cleared his throat. His voice sounded, and felt, like gravel. “What are… oh. Oh shit.”

“Yeah.” Barclay stood up straight, hands resting on his hips. 

“Fuck.”

“Yeah man.” He gestured towards the floor, where Duck’s boots were sitting. Beacon's hilt was poking out of one of them, like he was curled up in a sleeping bag. He must have slinked himself off. “You slept here all night.”

Duck pushed himself up into a sitting position and dragged a hand down his face, gathering his bearings. The lobby was empty, and cold morning light was pouring in through the windows. No sun to be seen.

“Shit,” he said. “Yesterday was rough.” He still hadn’t showered, goddammit. Plus, he had to get home and feed the cat.

“Sure was. You got an okay amount of sleep though. Pretty sure you hit the sack while you were mid-sentence.” Barclay smiled around his words.

Duck pushed the blanket away, and pieced together the previous evening.

Barclay spoke again. “If you need anything, I can -”

“- Is Juno alright?”

Barclay’s his shoulders stiffened. “I'm pretty sure. Haven't heard from her, it's only eight o'clock.”

Duck put his feet on the floor, rubbing his eyes with his forearm, probably tracking dirt across his face from his sleeve. “She’s usually up by now. I should go check on her-”

Almost on cue, the floorboards creaked and Juno appeared in the doorway to the stairwell. She was wearing a bathrobe over what looked like her uniform pants. There were bags beneath her eyes, set so dark they looked like shadows.

This was a tired he’d never seen on her.

“Good morning," Barclay said. He took a step towards the kitchen and gave her a smile, which would have been fine, had it not looked identical to the smile he gave Agent Stern. Anxious. A cover.

Juno wrapped her arms around herself. “Mornin',” she said wearily. Her eyes landed on Duck, and she smiled softly, as if he were a strange sight to see.

“You sleep there?” She asked. “All night?”

Duck cleared his throat. “It would, uh... Seem that I did.” Juno looked clean, like she’d used the shower in her room. He must have looked a goddamn mess.

“Either of you need anything?” Barclay asked, scratching the back of his neck

“I’m fine, thank you,” Juno said, eyes drifting around the room, not meeting his.

Duck shook his head, and stretched. His shoulder pressed into the leather of the couch, making a creaky sound like footsteps through deep snow.

“Alright,” Barclay disappeared into the kitchen, closing the door behind him, leaving the two alone in the otherwise empty room. There was a soft shuffling upstairs, above their heads.

She stayed in the doorway, and looked at him with a weak smile. “Why’d you stay?” She asked.

“I - I wasn’t sure if you were goin’ home or… or somethin’, and I just dozed off, I guess.”

“I don’t know if I can…” She trailed off, and looked down at the floorboards, thinking. Duck felt like the room was cast in shadows. He wasn’t sure why.

Her eyes lifted. “Can I talk to you ‘bout all this? Upstairs?” 

“Sure, yeah. Sure.” Duck stood and almost got his legs tangled in the blanket. He freed himself and followed her upstairs.

Soft, tired voices floated through the corridor, waking and getting ready for the day. Juno led him to the room they’d put her up in and pushed open the door. Duck noticed with an ounce of unease that she was right across from what he believed was Agent Stern’s room.

Juno slowly closed the door behind him. The room was like any other in the Lodge, and showed hardly any evidence that Juno was actually staying here. The desk was clear and the bed was made; only her green button up shirt hung on the back of the chair and her badge lying on the bedside table were the only items of hers Duck could see.

“I... actually didn’t sleep at all,” she said, sitting herself down on the chair.

“I’m sorry.” He sat across from her on the foot of the bed.

Juno ran her fingers over the fabric of her shirt, and stared out the window. Her dark hair fell over her shoulder and some over her tired eyes. She pushed it away from her face and looked back in Duck’s direction.

“How’re you… how’re you feelin’?” He asked slowly, unsure of the answer he was going to get.

“Oh. I don’t know.” Juno sounded… far away. Her voice carried a confusion and a distance that made Duck’s heart lurch in sympathy.

She brought a hand up and rubbed her forehead. “I feel… strange, bein’ here, Duck. Like I’m intruding, kind of. Y'know?”

"Oh," he said. "I get that, but I - I know for a fact you aren’t. These people are great, and they’re happy to help you. Honestly, they’re probably more annoyed with me for zonkin’ out in their lobby.”

Juno laughed a little. “Um… Mama told me all about - what’s his name? Stern? Agent Stern?”

“Stern, yeah,”

“Yeah, I feel like… I’m doin’ that. A little bit.”

Duck blinked. “How?”

Juno crossed her arms over the back of the chair. "I mean, I’m not… one of them. I’m not magical or from another world. I don’t like, transform into anything. Ain’t this place like a… refuge for them?”

He reclined back a bit, his hands pressing into the blankets. “I guess so,” he said softly.

They were silent. Thinking too much for it to be uncomfortable.

Juno rested her chin on her knuckles. “I don’t… know what to do,” she said, voice small.

Duck felt his face fall. “You’re sure you don’t wanna stay?”

She looked at the floor, her weary eyes searching and blinking slowly.

She nodded. “I thought… that when I woke up… it would - it would all’ve been a dream. And I’d wake up at  _ home _ .” Her eyes suddenly squeezed shut and she ducked her head down behind her hands holding the chair. Her voice had thinned on the last word, and it made Duck sit completely upright.

“ ‘S not a dream. Is it, Duck.”

Behind her hands, he heard her breathe a shaky sigh. He reached over, leaning forward - he couldn’t reach that far - and closed his hand over what he could of hers.

“No,” he said. “It’s not.”

Juno was… gentle. Not fragile, but gentle in a way that let her live life being open and warm. As Duck knew her, she’d grown less quiet, and seen more of the world. And she’d faced a lot life had thrown at her. It wasn’t as if she’s been horribly hurt over and over. But when something fought her, she fought right back and carried on living, staying strong and staying gentle.

But there was a pain around her right now, and Duck realized this was something she had no idea how to face. She didn’t know where to start. He tried to remember how long she’d lived in that house. It was a fair few years, but he couldn’t land on a number.

She lifted her head and looked at his hand. Her gaze drifted up to meet his eyes. He wanted to find her the solution, but he had no clue what it was.

His fingers ran along his jawline. “I could take you home, back to Nelson Street?”

Juno made a humming sound, thinking. “Yeah, I can’t - I can’t avoid it, can I?” She straightened up, and rubbed at her eyes.

“There’s a lot goin’ on. We’ll get it all sorted, alright?” Duck allowed his hand to slip away from hers and let it rest on his knee.

“Is there a service truck at your house?” He asked. “Did you drive there yesterday?”

Juno shook her hair out of her face. “No, I walked.”

“Yowza.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, okay. I’ll, uh… I’ll figure somethin’ out.” There was arithmetic in his head forming of how he was gonna transport her over. Calling Ned or borrowing Mama’s truck, getting to the station, grabbing a truck - heck, he could save gas and just sprint to the station.

He scratched his head. He’d left his hat somewhere, probably downstairs. “I gotta clean myself up. I’m a mess.”

“There’s a mirror over there,” Juno said, pointing by the closet.

“Oh, thanks.” He pushed himself up off the bed.

"Hey, also, the guy out there. The nice one. I forgot his name. He -"

"Barclay." Duck picked dirt off his sleeve as he moved to the other side of the room.

" _ Barclay _ , right. Okay." Her eyebrows flitted up. "Barclay… Huh."

"Yeah?"

"I don't know. It - it rings a bell, but I don't think I've met him before."

“Hm.” He reached the mirror. “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

Juno chuckled behind him at his words. He rolled his eyes - there was dirt all smudged up his neck, over his forehead and around his eye, like he’d rubbed his eye without noticing his hand was filthy.

“I look like a raccoon on this side.” He turned and headed for the bathroom to wash his face.

“Raccoons are cute,” Juno said as he passed her.

Duck raised his voice a bit as he disappeared into the bathroom. “Yeah well, then I’ll just go find myself a nice cozy trashcan to dig through.”

“Only if I join you.”

* * *

After a game of musical transport, Juno and Duck clambered into a service truck, Duck behind the wheel, and made their way over to her house. The drive was about twenty minutes, long enough for Juno’s mind to dip from one deep thought to the next, falling into silence against the bumps and hums of the road.

They turned into her street and there was a lamenting pull in her chest. She only had a handful of neighbors. The houses stood out from the rest of Kepler, they were older and closer to cottages in style than to the residential houses bundled around each other near Main Street. A few had been somewhat renovated the last few years. Most people couldn’t afford big remodels, so often the same couple contractors and building companies scattered around the county would take the jobs needed doing, and make the changes needed changing.

Added to Kepler’s charm, Juno supposed. Until now, her home had stayed untouched.

They rolled to a stop at the front of her lawn. Juno stared out. There was a figure outside, on the porch. They were scribbling something down in a notepad, leaning against a pillar in the fence that looked particularly wobbly. A police badge glinted in the light of the sunless sky.

Duck leaned forward, hands gripping the wheel. “Is that Dewey?”

“Fuck me,” sighed Juno. “Oh my God, look at it.”

It reminded her of a crude sketch drawing. As if someone had drawn her house in pencil, then dragged a chunk of charcoal down the white brick walls in anguish. Everything on the porch had been thrown around. She saw shards of broken pots, black soil, and spilled birdseed, the feeder itself nowhere in sight.

Her lawn was home to a few wild evergreen shrubs, which were there when she’d moved in. She’d tamed them and spread them around. Now, the ones living near the walls of her house seemed to have been pulled away, the branches reaching in the direction of the road, like they’d try to run away when the walls had shook.

Wind rustled the cedar tree on the lawn and it softly swayed back and forth. It looked as though it was just the house itself that the…  _ thing  _ had affected.

Juno glanced over at Duck, finally pulling her eyes away from the building.

"What do we, uh, what do we say to him if he asks what happened?" She asked.

"Oh God,” Duck said, “Don’t ask me."

Juno shook her head and climbed out, stepping out onto the grass of the lawn. Dewey looked up, a surprised look on his face, and snapped his book shut. She gave him a tired wave, closing the door behind her and making her way over. Duck followed behind.

Her house keys jingled in her pocket, and she felt a soft ache in her chest.

“Hey, Juno,” Dewey said as she approached, “What’s been happenin’? You okay?”

"I - I think," she said, and shrugged weakly. “What are you - what are you doin’ here?” 

“Well.” He rested a hand on his hip, voice cracking and friendly. “People were sayin’ they’d seen ya leave yesterday. 'N I was thinkin’ if the doors or windows were shaken to shit, they might’ve been easier to bust open - 'n case anybody wanted to break in. Pretty sure folks have been keepin’ an eye on things for ya, though.”

“That’s… that’s sweet, Dewey, thank you.”

“No problem. I had a look around, the windows are all shut, door’s fine, gate's locked up tight, nothing’s been moved, as far as I can tell. I think you’re good.”

“Okay.” Juno nodded and her gaze drifted over to the shaded porch.

"I'm not sure if this is gonna be related to the earthquake thing by the station the other day, which - wait, you were there after, weren't you?"

"Yeah," Duck and Juno answered in unison, and she winced.

Dewey's brow furrowed, first in confusion, and then concern. "Were you... inside when it happened?" He looked down at Juno - tall lanky thing.

Juno willed Duck not to look down at the floor, which he immediately did.

"I was… just outside,” she sighed. “I was out - out here. It was… scary - It was scary. Oof."

Juno looked away, she hadn’t said the word “oof” for about five years. Dewey didn’t seem to mind. He shrugged slightly and followed her gaze back to the house’s front.

Through the stained glass of the small windows in the front door, Juno could see the disturbance. Where she’d seen the monster. Duck had mentioned earlier how the floorboards had warped around themselves. It was faint, through the colored glass, but she could spot the misshapen mess, like she was looking at it through murky water.

There was an ache around it - a shadow - that made her lips pull into a tight line. She felt it in her gut. She felt it in her head, almost in her vision. It wasn’t the same feeling she’d felt during the attack, it was… slower. It wasn’t aggressive. It felt almost as if it was asking her something, or beckoning her inside.

Juno felt like if she let go, her mind would slip further into that beckon and she'd stumble up the steps into her house with no control. There was something there, but she stood, rooted to the path. 

“You - you goin’ inside?” Dewey spoke softly, but it ripped her from her focus on the door.

“Um -” Juno shook off the daze. “Not, uh - not yet.”

Junos eyes fell on the smashed birdfeeder, in shards by the door, and she stepped out from the shade of the porch roof.

“I’m gonna, I'll, um - I’ll check out the garden. One sec.” She started walking around the side of the house towards the backyard, glancing behind her once to see Duck giving Dewey a wave and following behind her.

The metal gate was nestled between the wooden panels of the fence that enclosed the garden. Behind her house was a long stretch of empty space, of maintained grass and dotted with trees. It may have technically been a park. It was public so folks took their dogs for walks over there or had the occasional picnic. It separated Nelson street from the cul-de-sac closer to the river.

From Juno’s attic window, the view was wonderful, especially after a snowfall.

The rusty iron bars of the gate were rough as her hands closed around them. After a moment, she unlocked it. Nobody could ever open this stubborn thing unless they knew to lift it, shove it forward, give the lock a wiggle and  _ then _ push it open. In that specific order.

Every house had its quirks. Had its creaks and groans, a stubborn gate or a dodgy step. A radiator that clunked in the night, a sensitive sink faucet, or a set of blinds that could never roll up or down smoothly. Homes had to have their traits - if the house didn’t live around you, you wouldn’t live in it.

The garden. Now this was life itself.

Most of the rumble had fucked with the interior of the house, but it still left traces across the backyard.

The wooden framing around the vegetable garden had been almost dismantled, the structure a little compromised, but the soil and sprouts within seemed okay and undisturbed. 

A small row of daffodils rolled along the path leading to the deck stairs. Their green stems had been crinkled and bent different ways. Tampered with, but not crushed. They were still vibrant in color, still living.

It was hard to look, however, anywhere else. It was like someone had taken a giant bag of soil, ripped it open, and poured it absolutely everywhere. There were cracks in the wooden stairs, out from which more dirt had burst. Thin tendrils of dry Wisteria yet to bloom, jagged and confused, crawled up a grate next to the stack of firewood, logs now strewn across the deck. Ceramic pots had been thrown around - some smashed, the soil cascading down the stairs and off the side, into the grass below.

It wouldn’t be so bad, had she not been able to remember where every inch of the destroyed garden had come from. She’d filled in the pots last summer, growing lavender and emerald ‘n’ gold. She built the structure for the vegetable garden with her dad a few years ago, when he last visited from Puerto Rico. And she’d kept the firewood stocked high ever since that night she came home from the funicular station.

Juno couldn’t bear to give the garden another glance. She treaded lightly up the stairs, made for the back door, and ran her hands over the doorframe.

Locked up tighter than a drum. Thank God.

She rested her forehead against the door - the cold heavy against her skin - and sighed, half relief and half heartache. It'd been her home for almost ten years. She'd never felt safer than when she was inside these walls. Curled up on the couch or shrugging off rain in the mudroom.

There were sounds of clinking and scraping from behind her. She wiped her eyes and turned to see Duck propping up fallen pots, standing them back up against the wall. 

He stood up and brushed dirt from his hands. “Do you think you’re gonna… stay here?”

Juno placed a hand on the white paint of the brick wall, and ran her fingers over it. There was a twinge - an ache - at the back of her jaw.

“I don’t -” Her voice was almost crumbling. She cleared her throat, but it still came thin. “I don’t know if I…”

She looked down and saw the broom she’d cleaned the deck with a few days ago, fallen from its usual spot. She bent down and propped it back up against the door, keeping her eyes away from as much of the mess as possible.

Duck’s hands were in his pockets, and his eyes were down, flitting back and forth as he thought.

Juno took tentative steps across the deck, cautious of it falling through. 

She stared out into the distance, into that big space, and watched the trees. She watched them sway softly, as they rustled in the wind, catching more and more green in their leaves. At the back of her mind, she knew she was watching for an Eastern Bluebird.

“Do you wanna… stay with me?” Duck asked.

Juno squeezed her arms with her hands, warming herself as a breeze washed over her.

“Um, I don’t - I don’t know.” She wiped a cold tear from the corner of her eye and blinked.

“Anywhere you can think of, I’ll take you there.” He looked her in the eye, and leaned his arms across the fence around the deck, and it creaked beneath his weight.

“Careful there.” She gestured to the fence and he quickly moved, apparently feeling its current flimsiness. “I can’t - I can’t really think at all. Um -” She looked at him. “Are you - are you sure?”

Duck went to reply, when a sparrow zoomed past his head and he nearly dropped to the floor in panic, almost tripping over a rogue firewood log.

"Jesus,  _ fuck _ !" He cried, staggering backwards.

The sparrow was making a beeline for Juno and she calmly took a step to the side so it flew for the birdfeeder instead. 

It latched its little feet onto the frame. This one was more sturdy than the one out front, staying locked in place the wall, and the sparrow seemed grateful.

“Shit,” Duck breathed, readjusting his hat. Juno chuckled, and turned back to watch the bird.

It pecked happily at the remaining grain in the feeder, turning its head while it ate to look at Juno, like it was checking on her every now and then. It was mesmerising. She gave it a soft smile, and it chirped. What a pal.

“I think,” Juno didn’t tear her eyes away from the bird, “- staying with you would be good.”

“Yeah?” 

Juno nodded, and headed down the steps. 

“Alright, that’s fine,“ Duck said as they left the garden the way they came. “We’ll sort this out and then we… How do you - how do you shut this?” He said, puzzled by the gate that didn’t lock back into place.

They bid Dewey a farewell and made their way back over the lawn towards the van. They climbed inside and Juno shivered. The lack of sunlight was giving everything a slight chill.

“Right,” Duck said, hands on the wheel. “Okay, real quick. How ‘bout this?”

“What?” 

“How ‘bout back to the lodge for a bit, get Aubrey to try to cheer ya up -” Juno chuckled. “- Give me a chance to set up the apartment, and I’ll come get you again.”

She shook her head. “Shit, Duck, you’re really cruisin’ ‘round today.”

“I’m - I’m happy to -”

“Wait -” Juno extended her hand, and he flinched slightly when her fingertips brushed Duck’s neck by his jacket collar.

"There's a daisy on you," she said, pulling back her hand. He saw the limp little flower, and she twirled it between her fingers.

He stared at it. "I really gotta shower," he said.

* * *

Indecisive skies were a common occurrence during Kepler’s springs. It slipped between colors and shades and drifted its clouds across the horizon in irregular textures, whether it be to soft breezes, or in roaring winds. Towards Amnesty Lodge, or through the forest as the sunlight gradually chose whether or not to seep seamlessly through the leaves.

Two pairs of dirtied boots thudded to the Lodge’s wooden floor. The Lodge’s warmth seeped into Aubrey’s bones as she propped the boots against the wall, and quickly followed Dani through to the lobby.

“Hello?” Dani called out softly, shifting the items the two of them had collected on their walk in her arms.

There came a gentle clink from the kitchen.

“Girls?” Barclay called back, “Mama was worried. Where’ve you been?”

Aubrey heard his footsteps approaching. The door opened and from it, he appeared.

“Here you go,” Dani said, hefting the items towards him, light through the windows shimmering off her hair.

“Oh - oh, thank you! Aw man.” Barclay said, a look of pleasant surprise on his face.

Aubrey had been in her room, lying on her bed and thinking, for about an hour. Then dear Dani came in and requested Aubrey’s company on a walk through the woods. Bluebells, forget-me-nots, daffodils and buttercups were scattered over banks and pathways, and the sky moved slowly overhead. They’d wandered beside a small stream, footsteps crunching over a steadily clearing forest floor, and picked some tall flowers, gathering them carefully in a big bunch. Aubrey watched Dani choose which ones to grab, and how she held them in her gentle, skilled arms.

They had a good haul, and they arranged them into a nice bouquet for Barclay just before they walked in.

It had been lovely. Over the last few days, Aubrey had either had her nose in that book, or lost in thought in one way or another - not getting a lot of fresh air. She hadn’t spoken a lot, so there was a soft, uplifting sweetness in her chest as she walked the woods, side by side with Dani. 

“Did you go far?” Barclay asked, examining the flowers.

“Down near the creek and then back,” Dani said, draping herself over one of the couches.

He backed up against the kitchen door, pushing it open and walking back in. “Didn’t run into anything out there? Didn’t see anything?”

“No, Barclay, we were fine,” Aubrey said, “Where’s Mama?”

“She -” There was shuffling of flowers and utensils. “She went to check on Ned. He left before she could talk to him last night, ‘n she wanted to make sure he was okay.”

“You didn’t go?”

“No, I - I didn’t go. Someone has to keep an eye on this place.”

“Gettin’ a lot of business these days,” Dani mumbled, adjusting her position so she was curled into the cushions.

“It would seem so,” Barclay said softly. “I’m not sure if Juno’s staying, though.”

“She’s a nice lady,” Dani sighed, “I’ve met her before. I remember a couple months ago, she talked to me about the birds’ nests in the woods and all the trees they’re in.”

“Hm. Yeah, she’s lovely. And she’s Puerto Rican, like me.”

“She does remind me of an older, chiller you.” Dani said, smiling.

"Who wears better walking shoes. Your feet okay?"

Aubrey moved her legs and sat cross-legged on the couch, rubbing her feet. "They're fine."

The adrenaline of the walk settled away, and Aubrey started to feel the weariness. She rested her head back on the leather couch, and heard soft music soothing through from the floor above. Her brain told her to imagine the ceiling splitting, darkness blooming from within.

"You alright there, quiet?" Barclay said the last word like it was a nickname.

What they’d seen - it was scary. Aubrey didn’t want to screw this one up, she never did. The hell of these things had put Juno in danger before, and now it had touched her. Aubrey thought about this side of things a lot, but with the walk, and the fresh air, and Dani’s company, it felt a lot like writing a journal entry. Getting it all off your chest and off your mind. That didn’t always work for her, but today caught a taste of lifted weight, among moments of unease.

Aubrey glanced beside her at Dani, who was giving her a soft smile. Aubrey's mind was trying to untangle. There were still things to voice. She wanted to pick the right words, like wanting to pull the right scrap of paper out of a hat.

There was a creaking sound, Aubrey she thought at first it was the kitchen door opening. She looked over for Barclay, but it was the front door that caught her eye.

Stepping through it, soft worry setting into her face, was Juno Divine. She smiled weakly at Aubrey and closed the door behind her with careful hands.

“Hi, again,” Aubrey called, sitting forward.

“Hey there, Aubrey.” Juno wandered over, and linked her fingers together, looking a little lost. 

“Is everything okay?” Aubrey asked.

“I - Yeah. Yeah, a little better now.” She gave Dani a little nod. “We’re, uh… sortin’ out somethin’.”

“What’re you sorting out?”

“A, uh… a place to sleep.” Juno winced a little. She looked exhausted. “I don’t think I can -”

“Oh,” Barclay said, appearing from the kitchen carrying a large vase, which was happily housing the bouquet of flowers. He’d stopped halfway through the door, pushing it open with his back, hands full with the flowers, and was looking at Juno with a look of surprise on his face.

“H - hi. Are you… staying with us again?” He asked, finally entering the room and wandering over to a window, where he placed the vase on the windowsill.

Juno’s eyes followed him, lines beneath them pronounced. 

“I, uh, no. No, I think I’m goin’... to stay with Duck instead.”

“Yeah?” He said.

Aubrey instinctively looked back at Dani, who had sunlight sifting over her face when she waggled her eyebrows. Aubrey bit back a smiled and shook her head - still not the time.

Barclay offered Juno a seat, and they kept steady conversation, however unsteady Juno seemed. After a few minutes, she seemed to settle. She definitely seemed to know Dani, the two talked openly, and with sunlit smiles.

Looking at Barclay, however, Aubrey spotted a different behaviour. She saw fidgeting, and brown eyes shifting between Juno and the floor. It reminded Aubrey of how he spoke in the company of Agent Stern. Juno seemed harmless, and not looking to cause a stir. As a matter of fact, she looked a lot how Aubrey imagined herself to look when she was in a daydream. Present and responding, but out of place, and Aubrey wouldn’t have been surprised if she felt it too. She doubted if the was Barclay was acting was helping any.

Juno’s eyes drifted down to the object lying on the coffee table.

“What’s that?” She asked.

“Big ol’ book of poetry,” said Aubrey. “Sylvain poetry.” 

Juno’s eyebrows flew up and she leaned over to tap the book’s cover with her finger. “This is from Sylvain?”

“Mm-hm.” Juno continued to watch it, like it might fly open and snap at her fingers.

She turned to Barclay. "Can I..." she said tentatively. "Can I look at it?"

"Sure," he said.

Carefully, she slid the book closer to her, and leaned forward. Aubrey kept her eyes on the anthology's thick spine, and listened for the crack in the binding. Juno opened the wide cover and then flicked to a few pages in.

Juno's eyes trailed over the text, eyebrows furrowed, but only for a moment. Like she had stared it down, trying to discern what was written, before it all snapped into place.

"Oh…" was all she said. 

Sylvain poetry was written in a different way. Not a different language or dialect, but with almost magical energy in the word usage. 

Reading Sylvain felt like reading English, but upside down.

Aubrey figured that the reason it was easy for her, an English and Spanish reader, was because of how the lines were formatted, in poems rather than a big old block of text that Aubrey found impossible. She read most of the poetry in Janelle’s voice. She then wondered if there might have been a stack of papers stuffed in her desk, on which masses of poetic thoughts were scrawled.

"This is beautiful. Y’all have libraries full of books written this way?"

"Just in the one city, I’d expect,” Barclay said, watching her read.

"It’s wonderful. It's like another language, but I can read it."

Barclay looked at her in disbelief. "It  _ is _ another -" he began.

"I'll FedEx you some." Aubrey grinned.

“I’m - I’m sure that’ll work,” Juno said, smiling and raising an eyebrow at her. Her expression softened, and she slowly ran her fingers across the page. “I can’t imagine what this place looks like.”

“Maybe one day we can take you there.”

Juno chuckled softly. “Maybe,” she sighed, and shook her head - but her eyes were a little brighter than they’d been for quite a bit.

* * *

Duck drove gently, the hum of the truck’s engine speaking to him differently in the darkness than in the softening evening light. They passed over a bridge, and the last of daylight disappeared beneath the world below, and darkness was not long to show itself after.

Juno had been sitting in the Lodge with Aubrey and Barclay. When Duck had walked in Aubrey had been concluding the full story of the funicular, to which Juno was listening intently. 

"I've had some stories," she'd said, grinning. He had no desire to learn what that meant.

White streetlight shifted into orange, and shadows between every surface in sight turned slowly unsettling. In the quiet parking lot, not a creature stirred as Duck pulled the truck to a stop.

The engine moaned into silence and Duck and Juno let out identical sighs. He grabbed the keys and braced himself for cold night air.

"I'm sorry you're being thrown 'round so much,” he said, stepping out and closing the truck door.

Juno adjusted the jacket around her shoulders. Duck's. He'd given it to her to wear. It was freezing and she only had her uniform shirt. Her jacket was left in her house from yesterday.

"It's… addin' to the adventure," she said, moving around the truck's hood in his direction. She needed a good sleep, the lost hours were showing on her face. “Magic worlds. Monsters ‘n shit. It’s great.” She flashed two OK signs and a weary smile, and he gave her one back to match.

They trudged up the steps to the door, and Duck unlocked it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Juno looking out into the hills. The Monongahela rolling jet black shapes in the night, dotted with tiny specks of light - the windows of the buildings on Resort Row.

"Go on in," Duck said, pushing the door open. "Get warm."

Inside, the kitchen light was left on, softly lighting Juno as she shrugged off the jacket and searched for a hook to hang it on. She let out a long sigh, laced with a shiver.

From the bedroom, he started hearing faint cat activation sounds, and subsequent chirping for attention. The noise that followed was a soft gasp from Duck’s side.

“Oh, heck yeah, Lily,” Juno called wearily, and followed the mewling to the bedroom door.

“Kitty? Lily -” she pushed the door open and Duck watched her disappear into the dimly lit room, and heard her voice become high and gentle when she found the cat, presumably curled up on the bed. “Aw, baby, there’s my girl.”

Duck smiled to himself, and locked the front door. Juno definitely deserved some downtime. She’d only ever been to his apartment a few times, but she and Lily always got on like a house on fire. He still heard muffled baby talk and kissing sounds as he stepped into the kitchen.

He dropped his keys on the counter and switched on the faucet and filled the kettle twice as high as usual.

He’d gotten home earlier and gotten an earful from the girl, yowling and mewling like he’d been gone for years. She’d had a funny five minutes and zoomed around the bedroom, strafing around his feet, making the changing of the bedsheets the hardest job of the day. Nonetheless, he managed to run out to the parking lot to train with Minerva for a few minutes. At least that was out of the way for the night.

He set out two mugs and tossed a teabag in one, and missed the other.

Shit, Minerva. He’d probably let slip a couple things about that over the last few months. He didn’t know how much Mama and Aubrey had told her, but he assumed she probably got the gist of Sylvain and the Abominations. He had no doubt that Mama would’ve been thorough.

She was speaking softly in the other room. Her voice floated through the walls, innocent and gentle, but heavy against the silence.

The water in the kettle started rising in temperature, and the kettle started rumbling. Duck leaned on the counter, his hands balled up, knuckles to the hard surface.

There was a soft, low sympathy in his chest, and as the image of Juno's house flashed in his mind, it pulsed. It'd looked almost… diseased. On its last legs. It was a quaint little structure, and suited Juno perfectly - but Duck had stood in the backyard that afternoon, and it felt like it was begging for forgiveness. There was so much mending to be done.

There was a mewl from the bedroom, and Duck hadn’t realized the kettle was already long past the point of boiling.

He sighed and flicked the switch again. Steam swirled into the air as the water poured into the mugs. He placed the kettle back on its stand with a  _ klunk _ , and caught sight of the deep darkness behind the glass of the kitchen window. Only a few months into spring, he thought. When nights in Kepler got warmer, they tended to get louder - frogs and crickets exploring the tall grass, and owls filling the skies with sounds. Still, Duck hadn't felt the warmth for a couple days. You always knew when spring had arrived in Kepler, and Duck thought it had. Perhaps he’d been mistaken.

His head was all over the place, and he made sure to watch his feet - he didn't need to trip and add miles of tea stains to the list of his apartment's problems.

Juno emerged from the dark bedroom, and Duck noticed a few dark cat hairs clumped together on her sleeve.

"She's an angel, oh -"

“That's for you," he said, and lifted the mug of tea towards her. She took it with hands that for the first time in several hours, weren’t shaking.

"Thank you," she sighed, like he was bestowing unto her a blessed-by-God gift.

There was a soft thud and a hitched meow and Lily came running out of the room and towards Juno. She leapt up onto the back of the couch and stretched over to get close to her again. The girl loved Juno to death.

Lily bumped her head right into Juno's hand, making a  _ merrp _ sound once every few seconds. Juno leaned down to eye level, scratching at Lily's soft brown fur.

"I know, I know," she said, receiving another chirp in reply. "Ohh, you talk so much!" She placed a kiss on her head, and Lily leaned into it.

"She's sure happy to see you," Duck said, placing his cup on the dresser. He seized a couple blankets and some old cushions from the armchair, and threw them down on the couch where he planned to sleep.

Juno sidestepped out of his way, keeping her hand scratching Lily's ear. "She's the best," she said.

They shuffled around, and Juno stepped back against the closed door behind her. She stared at it for a second, like it’d made her jump.

"What's this again?" She asked.

He smoothed out the blanket over the back of the sofa. "Office," he answered.

Juno nodded, fingers tracing the door. Duck smiled. She was kind of hovering in front of the door, looking between her mug and the cat.

"You're allowed in there," he said.

"Oh," and she nudged the door open, peeking inside.

She basically vanished. "Aw shit, man, the  _ boats _ ."

Sweet Jesus. He rolled his eyes, grabbing his mug and following her in.

“There’s not a lot to look at in here,” he said. “I cleared ‘em out before Christmas.”

She was standing over the desk next to the chair, having picked out one of the brushes, inspecting it. A detail brush with a point so fine it was almost non-existent. 

“What’d you do with ‘em all?”

“I threw them out.” He leaned against the doorway. “Or gave them to the community store. Or to Jane. The decent lookin’ ones.”

“I love them all. How long does it usually take you to make one?"

"Uh, ‘bout a week?"

She looked over the half-finished ship in the center of the desk. A small Gundalow with its hull painted green, and a mast with no sail.

"How long you been workin' on this one?"

"Seven months."

She looked up and smiled.

"That Lodge keepin' you busy?"

"It… would be."

She took a sip, and turned to face the window. He spotted her face in the reflection, her eyes bright and piercing, as soft as they were, against the outside world’s stark blackness.

“We need rain,” she sighed.

Duck’s eyes trailed down to the desk. He stared into a single pale blue paint stain.

“Are you okay?” He asked.

Juno turned, hazel eyes deep and earthly as always, and said nothing.

Maybe it was her, or a trick of the evening, but it felt like she moved in slow-motion. She rounded the desk and looked into her tea. He followed her gaze, and Duck kind of felt himself slip into simply watching as the liquid swirled around in the mug. Flecks of light and reflections slipped back and forth, over and over.

“Alright.” She said, finally. “That… depends on - I’m tryin’ not... to lose it here, Duck. I’m tryin’ to keep one thing in front of me at a time. But that does depend you. Or whatever the hell it is you’re gonna tell me.”

“I’ll just… try ‘n remember all the good parts, and we can get it all… sorted, and just… figure it. Go with the flow.”

“When was the last time you went with the flow, Duck Newton?”

He let out a long sigh, and she smirked. “We’ll - we’ll keep it - we’ll keep it simple, and it’ll be… uh -”

His co-worker grinned. “Smooth sailin’.”

“Yeah,” Duck said, before grimacing upon realizing what she’d said. “Fuck me,” he groaned, and turned around and left the room.

In the bedroom, he placed the tea on the nightstand and slumped onto the bed. Juno followed him, and brushed some cat hair off the bedsheets where Lily had been sleeping. The lamp was the only light in the room, and lit Juno from the side, catching onto her hair and her arms as she moved. There was some mud spattered on her shirt, from the fight yesterday.

"Oh shit,” he said. “You don't have any - uh, you want something to sleep in?” He sprung to his feet and made for the closet in the corner. “Hold on."

"Oh yeah, that's - yeah."

It was hard to see, it was so damn dark, but he didn’t want to disturb the soft lighting. He reached into the closet and pulled out a grey t-shirt - soft as hell, with the words "go first" printed on the front in black - and folded it up on a pair of sweatpants. Duck was a big man, but they’d fit around Juno just fine.

She changed in the bathroom. He’d have to set out some more stuff for her tomorrow - she didn’t wanna be walking around in her ranger uniform for the next few days, and he didn’t want her going back to her destroyed home when she couldn’t face it yet.

He could hear Juno finishing up in the bathroom, and he went to the kitchen to put her tea in the microwave. After almost tripping up over her on the way out, he found Lily sitting outside the bathroom door on the way back, staring intently at the closed door, waiting patiently.

“Why’re you bein’ weird?” Duck asked softly, and she replied with a slow, grumpy blink of her blue eyes. He left her to it.

Afterwards, Juno slowly entered the bedroom, drawstrings of the pants knotted several times, and held the door open for Lily who trotted in.

Juno gave him a smile, slow and tired.

"Hey," he said, leaning back on his hands. "That all fit okay?"

"Yeah, it's great, thank you." She climbed onto the bed and propped a pillow against the headboard.

Duck had arranged blankets on the bed and couch. Somehow, mid-spring wasn't enough for nighttime temperatures higher than late 30s. It wasn’t much, but it was the best he could do.

"Alright," Juno said, sounding like she was strapping in for a rollercoaster ride. Lily settled into the covers, lazily moving her paw over one the tassels on the blanket. "Talk to me. Give me your version of things."

"Okay." He heaved a long and heavy sigh. This was going to be a long night…

"When I was… 'bout eighteen…"

* * *

It must take so much energy to be such a good listener. Juno was clearly knackered, hanging onto Duck's every word. After suggesting around four times that they should leave the rest for tomorrow, he gave up on it, and just let himself stumble through the explanation of the side of Kepler Juno hadn't seen before yesterday.

Duck adjusted his position, leaning his elbow on a pillow. The lamp on the bedside table on Juno's side was giving him a bit of a headache. 

"Well," he said in response to her question. "The Lodge is a little… well, a lot different. They aren't like what we've had to… go up against, at all."

"Hm, they're all friendly monsters aren't they?" Juno was sitting cross-legged with a blanket folded around her bare feet, resting her chin on her hand.

"Uh, yeah." Duck laughed softly. "What've we got? Uhh, vampires, ghosts, various… furry things - oh, Bigfoot. The real one."

"Bigfoot? You - okay."

"Yup. I'm surprised Aubrey didn't give you the rundown on this."

"No, yeah, she mostly gave me, like - context for shit I saw." Juno smoothed out the fabric over her feet.

“Uh. Okay, what else?" Duck ran a hand through his hair. "Um. Oh, Indrid was Mothman but he’s been gone for -”

Juno stared.

“Indrid was  _ Mothman _ ?”

Duck stared back.

“You knew Indrid?”

A smile appeared on her face. “I - Yeah. Yeah, I ran into him every now ‘n then. He was… he was nice to talk to.”

Duck’s brow furrowed. That probably wouldn't be how he would describe the Indrid he'd met. Then again, Indrid was probably a million different things to a million different people.

"I didn't think he got out much," Duck said.

"Oh, he didn't. But he was illegally parking that Winnebago and I had to nag him about it. Where'd he go?"

"No idea.” Duck chuckled softly against his hand, and shook his head. “How 'bout that."

Juno’s eyes scanned the wall, drifting down, distantly, from ceiling to floor. He could almost see the weight of it all pooling together on her shoulders - slowing the movement of her hand as she dragged it gently along Lily's fur.

"Okay," she sighed, leaning back and stretching her shoulder muscles, her voice straining as she stretched. "And that's all you know?"

"Yeah, that's, I think, the main gist. Everything else is just… weird details." He waved his hand dismissively.

Juno rubbed her forehead, nodding.

"I'm sorry you got dragged into this."Duck said. "I tried to stop that from happenin'. We're  _ supposed _ to stop that from happenin' -"

She turned to him. "I know you did," she said firmly. "I understand - at least as much as I… feel likeI can at this point."

She fell quiet and still, and let out a shuddering breath.

Duck pushed himself up and dragged himself down the bed and wrapped his arms around her. They fit against each other into a hug. A real one. A real good hug.

" 'N that  _ is _ everything?" She asked, her voice reverberating softly into his shoulder.

"As I understand it, yeah."

They were quiet, safe, and lit by the single lamp in the corner. Their breathing gave the hug a gentle sway, and Duck hoped it softened Juno's thoughts as it softened his. Quiet, safe, and still.

Until a teasing voice rolled through the air, and Duck mentally punched himself in the face.

“ _ Duck Newton… It appears you have left a certain crucial character of your story out _ .”

Comically, Juno slowly pulled away from the hug, and stared at him. From her expression, he couldn't tell whether she was going to laugh, pass out, or run.

"What the  _ fuck _ ?" 

Duck turned his head away from her, urging away the laughter that begged to surface, and sighed.

“Right. Right right, so," Duck chuckled awkwardly and removed Beacon from his belt loops. "This is... a sentient sword, and I may have neglected to mention him. Minerva gave me this, uh… ‘bout a long long time ago -” Juno was going on a face journey but she was nodding receptively, watching as the sword slinked about.

“Aaand he's my weapon, aaand he's a piece of shit.”

“ _ Oh! _ Oh God, that's your -”

" _ Do not let our mutual associate color your impression of me. I assure you there is much more to me than meets the - _ " Beacon's voice became muffled as Duck pushed the hilt against the bed, obscuring his words against the mattress.

"Shut up, you're goin’ in the cabinet." He held up a finger and jumped to his feet, making for the door. "One second," he said.

He made sure the bedroom door shut closed behind him before he marched Beacon back to the kitchen.

He gave the bastard a dirty look. "Do  _ not _ make her anymore afraid than she already -"

" _ Wwwell, a woman in Duck Newton's bed. I never thought I'd see the d  _ -"

Duck walked directly into the counter, the corner stabbing into his side. He almost knocked the trashcan over. Beacon cackled as he let out a half-stifled groan.

" _ What _ -" Duck grimaced through the pain, "What is the  _ matter _ with you?"

" _ Well, let's face it, Duck. You were never one for acting in moments like these, were you _ ?” Beacon sneered. " _ Moments of coincidence, or circumstances in which romantic feelings coming to light would be quite _ -"

Duck gritted his teeth. “I don't  _ have _ any romantic feelings, idiot.” He tossed Beacon in with the coffee mugs, where he belonged. 

“ _ Ah, but Duck. You had a vision of a tree. You're certain you don't want to - _ ” his lips curled into a sour smile, “... branch _ out your interests? Not even a little _ ?” He wriggled - the metal clinking was infuriating - before coiling up.

Duck slammed the cabinet door on him, and heard the china mugs inside rattle. “I fuckin’ hate you.”

Beacon mumbled something else, but Duck was already halfway to the bedroom.

Duck let out another pained sigh, walked back into the bedroom, closed the door and leaned against the doorknob. 

"That... was the last surprise, I promise," he said.

Juno softly chuckled. "Did you just… give your sword a time out?"

"Put him to bed."

"Okie-dokie - what was that noise?"

"I… I just… I just dropped him. Into the sink. Yeah. I dropped him in the sink. The asshole."

Juno looked at him sympathetically. "A'ight."

Duck let himself grin. "A'ight, well, we can probably leave it there now, if you want." Duck checked his watch. Yikes, it was late. "If there's… nothin’ else?"

There was a bump against the other side of the bedroom door behind him, and he rolled his eyes and opened the door again. Lily rushed into the room and made for the bed, much to Juno’s delight.

"Hello, flower. Where'd you come from?" Duck said as she hopped up again.

"She followed you out," Juno said, smiling at her.

Duck wasn’t prepared for the adorable events that proceeded to unfold on his bed. Juno shimmied back on the bed, not taking her eyes off Lily, who sauntered across the mattress and pawed at the blanket before burying her face underneath and climbing inside the covers. Juno actually followed suit, - pulling the duvet around herself - and rested her head on the pillow and made a kissing noise at her.

His heart damn near turned to honey. 

“Hello,” she cooed, before her eyes flitted back up to Duck. “Is she allowed to do this?”

Duck smiled at her, all settled under the blanket, and shook his head. As much as it pained him, he wasn’t a fan of Lily’s fur going everywhere.

“Ah, shit. Okay, out'cha go,” Juno put her hands around the cat and lifted her back up above the covers. “Go over there, your bed’s over there, baby.” She pointed in the direction of where the long-forgotten cat bed lay in the corner of the room. The cat bed that had never seen, literally, head nor tail of Lily in the months it’d been in the apartment.

And Duck had to watch as Lily  _ directly obeyed  _ Juno’s order, and hopped off the foot of the bed and drifted over to the fleece cushion, where she curled up and began contentedly kneading the soft, untouched material.

Duck stared. “Are you  _ kiddin’ _ me?”

“What?” Juno asked.

He shook his head, and walked back over to the closet, rummaging through for his own pajamas.

"So,” he said, looking up. “You need anything?"

“Um, yeah,” Juno said, fiddling with a tassel on one of the blankets. “Could you explain - sorry -”

“No problem." Duck stood and folded his clothes over his arm.

“Could you explain Minerva again?”

He stopped. “I… I can. Just - just gimme a sec.” 

Duck went to the bathroom and sorted himself out. He stared at his reflection in the mirror. He crossed his arms over his chest and held both his shoulders, taking a deep breath and taking the feeling of the soft fabric into the palms of his hands.

_ Minerva _ ...

He switched off every light and appliance in the apartment, and closed every blind and curtain. Yet, before he entered the bedroom again, he switched the bathroom light back on, in case Juno had to get up in the night and couldn't see where she was going. 

Finally, Duck was settled onto the covers. "Okay," he said, propping himself up on an elbow. "What'd you say? Minerva?"

"Minerva, yeah -"

"Alright -"

"Y'know you said y’all are connected like… in - in your head? Like you see her but nobody else does?"

Duck blinked. "Uh-huh."

"And she kinda gave you the, uh - the toughness? For fightin'? In your body?"

"Yup."

"Did she - did she change anything…  _ outside _ your head?"

Duck started. "Outside my - my head?"

"Yknow?"

"Not really."

"Did she - fuck, I don't know how to explain this." She brought a hand to her lips, thinking. "Uh,  _ Oh _ . Did she affect… the world around you? That's what I was tryin' to say."

"The world around. Um… No."

"I was just thinkin'. So she's… enchantin’ everything -" She gestured to Duck's body, "- here. But not what you're seein' out there."

"Nope. I don't think so. You never really know with her."

"Huh." She laid back down, and stared at the ceiling. Letting out a long breath, her eyes fluttered closed.

"You okay?" Duck asked.

Juno was quiet. Something she hadn't truly been in a long time. Her eyes opened slowly, dark and complicated. 

"No."

She reached over and switched off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness. The closed blinds kept the streetlights from casting bars of streetlight over the room, the covering of night almost monochromatic to what Duck could see. He lay back, not under the blankets yet.

His fingers brushed over Juno's knuckles, and in the little light remaining, he saw the wrinkles beside her eyes shift as she smiled.

“I remember," she murmured in the darkness. "I remember I swore to someone once that I was gonna… find all the… wild and wonderful and weird and... otherworldly shit in Kepler.” A tired chuckle escaped her. “It’s funny how it’s…”

“It’s findin’ you.”

“Yeah, it’s rearin’ its head... twenty odd years later.” She smiled softly. "Y’know, I thought I was just haunted by fairies."

He chuckled. "I... wouldn't be surprised if you were. Did you... believe in the stuff Ned did in the Cryptonomica? Before all this?"

Juno’s gaze trailed across the room.

"Not all of it," she said, as her eyes fell shut again. "Mhm. Keep talkin' to me. I'll fall asleep."

There it was.

The silent darkness was stretched above them in a way that muted the world beyond, and his mind picked up on the smallest, subtlest movements; Lily moving in her bed, traffic that sounded like it was miles away, strands of Juno's hair drifting down as she turned her head.

"Are you… surprised?” He asked. ”That magic is real?"

"No," she answered. Zero hesitation

"I always… wanted to tell you."

"Yeah?"

"Hm. I think I knew that you… I knew you would've believed me."

There was a smile, and Duck closed his eyes.

"I hope you sleep better tonight," he said.

"Hm. How old is the Lodge?"

Duck ran a hand over his arm, it was getting cold. "How old is it? As in, the building?"

"Hm."

"Uh... I don't know. Mama’s been there since… I wanna say -” he yawned, “- since the eighties, but I’m not sure.”

Juno spoke slower, and her voice lowered like a light in a dark room dimming. "It felt old. It creaked. The night was windy. I imagined myself feeling the house move."

Duck wanted to say several things, but the edges of his focus were melting into blackness, and the words were forgotten in the blur.

In the slowing tide of Juno's breathing, Duck's awareness was lost.

Duck never got around to moving to the couch. They stayed there, at each other's side, the soft bass of their voices quietly soothing each other to sleep. Their breathing soon joined in rhythm. A rhythm not unlike that of the trees lining Kepler's main road, swaying side to side, lit only by the streetlight, and the steadily filling moon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can catch a glimpse of the real lily in my profile pic. she's real as beans.


	6. Look Me in the Eyes, Tell Me What you See

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Juno faces the morning. The Pine Guard has a conversation. Ned figures out how to put his helping hand to use.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter's songs are:  
> \- Conversation by Max Richter  
> \- Moon At The Window by Joni Mitchell

Dragging her head from the safety of the covers was like trying to move through quicksand. The world washed into sight. She didn’t recognize the bedside table lamp she saw; the duvet she snuggled beneath, or the color of the walls.

“ _Oh…_ ” Her own voice was muffled but was still heavy on her senses. She lifted her head slightly, and heard a crack in her neck. _Christ_ , she felt old.

Juno turned over, and brushed the veil of hair out of her eyes. There was Lily, who perked up at the slow movement, and there was a sleeping Duck Newton. Snoring into his pillow and - poor guy, he'd slept curled up around the duvet instead of underneath it. He must've been freezing.

Juno yawned. She’d fallen asleep slowly, and she was fairly sure, to Duck’s voice.

Lily appeared, hopping up onto the bed and clambering across Juno’s feet to get to her. She lay back and let the brown-bespeckled feline make her way to her chest and bump her chin with her head.

" _Hola, Lirio,_ " Juno made a kissing sound, and Lily did exactly what she did the night before, and burrowed under the blanket. She made herself comfortable on Juno's chest, peeking out from under the duvet and mewling.

Juno had never heard a cat purr as loud as Lily did.

"This is against the rules," Juno whispered to her. Lily's blue eyes blinked slowly back at her, fur of different browns framing them warmly.

Those eyes had a pigment to them. An almost powdered texture of blues and greens and what looked like silver veins, the pupil a thin black slit. Lily's claws dug into her chest and she drew in a sharp breath. Lily chirped again and her eyes steadily closed. She was a happy happy cat.

" _Tht's 'n allowed…_ " mumbled the voice beside her, groggy and almost miles away with sleep.

His eyes were barely open, but focused on Juno's face. Shit. She'd been caught. Caught cat-handed.

“How long’ve you been awake?” She asked.

Duck’s eyes fell shut again and he let out a quiet groan.

“Oh, you aren’t yet,” she grinned.

Juno sat up, and carefully dislodged Lily from under the blanket and plopped her back on the duvet.

She looked over at Duck, who was rubbing sleep from his eyes. In the back of her mind, was an image of a younger version of this man, barely yet awake on the third morning of a camping trip - or maybe it was a field trip? During training? Juno was unsure.

He always looked nice by morning light.

His eyes opened. “Shit,” he said, and coughed once. “Didn’t mean t’ sleep in here. I get in your way?”

“No, I was fine. Better than the Lodge, I think.” She remembered being awake long enough to hear the birds start singing, and feel the morning light roll into the room.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I never sleep well in like, big big rooms."

"Huh. What time d'ya think you fell asleep?"

"God, uh…" Juno glanced at the clock and tried to judge it, "probably quite a bit into the mornin'."

"Dammit. You can go back to sleep if you want."

"I think you're the one who wants more sleep."

“Preposterous,” he drawled, voice so groggy Juno could just about make out the vowels.

Lily sauntered over to Duck and head-bumped his shoulder. Juno scratched over the cat's shoulder blades, who then turned and made for Juno's lap again.

Duck clicked his tongue. "Y'know," he warned. "Y'know the rules."

Juno gave Lily's head a kiss, which she nudged into lovingly at full force. "Gotta give her scritches," she said simply, and scratched the fur on both her cheeks with each hand, looking into her eyes. “ _Scritchy-scritchy-scritches_.”

Duck reached out and ran his hand along Lily's back. She had quite a knobbly spine. She was loving the attention. "Hair gets… everywhere."

"Hey, no -"

"All over you. Always." He shook his hand and brown cathairs cascaded through the air like confetti, catching the light like dust.

"You," Juno then ruffled Duck's hair, in its morning messy glory. "- are one to talk." A few dark strands had gathered on his pillow. He didn't lose it from stress or age or anything, it was just ridiculously thick and needed help.

He grinned, hair falling over his eyes. "That is - now that's -"

From the kitchen, the phone started ringing.

They looked at each other, and Duck‘s face fell. He let out a pained groan and dragged himself up and out the door.

Juno laughed to herself and kissed Lily's head before scooping her up into her arms and following him out. The claws went in, but lovingly.

Behind the television, there was a window with no blinds or curtains over it. When she walked out of the bedroom, Juno could see all the way across the street, where morning sunlight reflected off fences and power lines. 

“Hello,” Duck said into the receiver. Lily chirped in response. 

“Oh," he said, after a long moment. " _Oh._ ”

Duck’s eyes widened, and he completely straightened up, weariness leaving his face with a jolt of surprise. His voice was lit suddenly with about ten emotions Juno was too tired to name.

“Uh, uh, yeah. Yeah, one - one moment,” he covered the mouthpiece with his handed, and looked at Juno, slightly alarmed.

“It’s your _mom,_ ” he said thinly.

Juno blinked. She quickly heaved Lily onto the couch and took the receiver, smirking.

“Mom?” She said.

“ _Oh, Juno,_ ” came her mother’s voice, sounding overwhelmingly relieved.

What a strange thing to hear. And what a strange place to hear it. Juno did the math - she hadn't heard this voice for about four weeks.

The voice spoke frantically. “ _I’ve been calling and calling. I called your house, I called your work, I_ -”

“Ma, it’s okay, I’m fine. I’m just… not at - not at home right now.”

Pieces of their sentences were in Spanish. There was more American in both their speaking accents than there was Spanish, and Juno didn’t shift between the two so seamlessly. She chatted a lot in Spanish when she hung out with her father, but he didn't visit as much as her mother did, and he didn't like phone calls. She'd go to San Juan to be with her family for birthdays and holidays when she could, and when she'd arrive back in Kepler, her voice would carry the inflections of the language for a few weeks before it just about vanished.

Bright, quick Spanish and loyal West Virginian were two very strange accents to blend.

Juno lied to her mom. Not directly, but she left out the detail of the monster crashing through the floor and fucking up the house. Ma had heard from one of the folks at the station about a minor earthquake, so Juno left it there. Just an earthquake.

Ma only wanted assurance of Juno's safety, and she prayed that she ended the conversation giving her just that. 

The receiver clicked into place, and she sighed. There was an obscure heaviness in her stomach, and it spread sourly up her throat. Such came with the telling of lies.

"Everythin’ okay?" Duck asked, emerging from the kitchen.

"Yup, yeah… Um… she is, at least." Juno hesitated a little.

Hearing her mother's voice brought memories of her sister and father and nephews a-calling. She hadn’t been back in a while. Hadn’t felt their arms around her or the touch of the rays of sunlight through the living room windows. Hadn’t chased the kids around the garden, the flowers surrounding them as bright and vibrant in scent as they were in color.

The memories were vivid, and came back not in flashes, but gradually, like printed photos on a string. All linked together. Rolling through her mind one by one.

Juno’s hand was still on the receiver, and her eyes were locked on it.

“There’s a bunch of family stuff in my house,” she heard herself say.

Duck crossed his arms. “Yeah?”

She nodded. “Hm. Pictures, gifts, there’s forms ‘n shit… things that I keep safe for ‘em.” She almost gave a bitter laugh.

She looked at Duck. If she looked at him she wouldn’t start combing through her memory for all the things she left in harm’s way, where they might have fallen and broken during the attack. She didn’t want to think of that.

“We could go back for ‘em,” Duck said.

“I…” _God, please, not yet._ “Not yet. I don’t think - no, not yet.”

Juno raked her hands through her hair, and made for the kitchen. Okay, time to wake up.

“Hungry?” Duck asked.

“Yes, read my mind,” she grinned.

Duck seized a frying pan from the drying rack, while Juno tried to familiarize herself with the coffee-making area of the kitchen. She opened one of the cabinets, caught sight of a set of shining teeth, and choked on a yelp.

“Fuckin’ _shit!_ ” She slammed it closed and stumbled backwards into Duck, who whipped around with a jolt against the counter.

“ _Jesus_ , what?! What - aw, _fuck_ -”

“ _Mmmm, you woke me up,_ ” mumbled a voice from behind the cabinet door.

Juno sighed heavily, and covered her eyes with one hand, and with the other, clutched at her heart, leaning against the counter. Goddammit to hell, the bitch keeps the sword in the cabinet.

“Holy shit,” she breathed. “Dear God, that scared me.”

“Definitely woke you up,” Duck said, chuckling.

“Is that - shut up - is that where it always -?”

“Yeah.” He reached over and opened the cabinet, where those lips were now pulled into a tired frown. “ ‘Scuse me.” The sword maneuvered so Duck could grab two mugs. “Thank you - yeah, probably shoulda reminded you of that.”

Juno tried to scowl, but she was kind of astonished. "It's okay in there?"

" _No_ -" the sword protested.

"Yeah, he's fine."

"What's his name?" Juno asked.

" _Ah, formal introductions,_ ” he drawled. “ _My name is Beacon_."

She nodded slowly. "Hi there, I'm Ju -"

" _Juuuno Diviiine_ ." He said it like it was a fancy greeting. " _Lovely name. Rolls off the tongue. Yes, I know who you are. I've known of you for as long as I have known Duck Newton_." He sounded gloriously unimpressed.

Juno wasn’t too sure on how to read Beacon, but the grin he wore was distinctly devilishly sly.

“Fair enough,” Juno said flatly. “I -”

" _Will you be… stopping by again? Or have you had your fill with this one night s -_ "

Duck slammed the cabinet door closed with the speed and grace of a cat on acid.

He stayed there for a second, frozen in place.

"Ignore him,” he said eventually. “Ignore him, please. 'S the best advice I can give ya." He gave the cabinet door an irritated thump.

Juno chuckled, and gave him a shit-eating grin.

He reluctantly smiled. “Whatever,” he said, turning back towards the stove. “Shoulda seen your face, though.”

“Yeah? It look like yours when you realized my mother was talkin’ to you?”

“None of this. None of this under my roof.” Duck put the pan on the stove and grabbed a few eggs out of the carton in the corner.

Juno set out to make some coffee, reaching back over to Duck’s side of the small kitchen to get a spoon.

"She's not that scary," she smiled. She knew damn well she could be when she wanted.

"I know, I know, she's the best. Ya just… ya ever have someone who you never really feel… comfortable talkin’ to?"

Juno spooned some coffee into the mugs and gave it a thought. 

"Barclay?" She shrugged, turning back to him for a moment.

Duck gave her a strange look, like he expected an explanation but wasn't gonna push for it. Juno gave him one back, and she caught a glimpse of a soft smile as he looked back down. 

_Wordless conversations_ , Juno thought, before quickly urging the fond thought away with a shake of her head. Make the damn coffee - plenty of time for _those_ at work.

The sound of Duck whisking the eggs met the sound of Lily chirping for attention from the couch, before she jumped down and trotted over into the kitchen. Juno put the spoon down with a soft clatter.

"Oh, let me feed her," she said, kneeling to the floor and opening a cupboard adjacent to the washing machine.

She paused. "That's cleaning supplies."

"Behind you," Duck said, pointing.

"Ah ha."

* * *

“You’re tellin’ me that the reason this place is so big is ‘cause whenever you’re bored y’all just… _D.I.Y._ yourselves some more rooms?” She asked, admiring the wooden beams stretching across the ceiling of Mama’s office.

“Pretty much,” Mama said, following her gaze. “There’s plenty of pairs of hands ‘round willin’ help out.”

If someone asked Juno, the general vibe of Amnesty Lodge appeared to change day to day. When she’d first seen it, it was overwhelming, dark and disconcerting. The next morning had felt just as strange, but softer in the light of day. And sitting there in the office was just all over the place.

The floorboards creaked, the sculptures and paintings were all different styles, there was a whiteboard shoved in a corner, and every time Barclay entered the room, she got anxious he was about to bump his head on the doorway. He’d been going in and out for a few minutes, carrying stuff back and forth.

Juno watched as he placed a large roll of paper on the desk, and unfurled it to reveal a map of Kepler, and a big chunk of the forest. A few areas on the map were circled. After that, he went and found a big old laptop, placed it down and turned it on. Which it did so very slowly.

“Oh, let me get one more chair,” Barclay said, promptly leaving the room again.

“He’s gotta do this stuff before we start,” Duck said under his breath, in the seat next to her. “ ‘Wise he won’t sit still for the next half hour.”

Juno smiled, and spared another glance at Duck. He was in a better mood today, but still there were shadows set beneath his eyes. Maybe he could have done with those extra five minutes of sleep.

There were footsteps from the hallway, and Ned walked in, hands in his pockets.

“Hello, children,” he greeted.

“Ned, look at this,” Aubrey said excitedly, whipping a small piece of paper towards him with a flourish.

“Oh,” Ned took it and inspected it, confused. After a second, his expression softened. “Aw. Did Dani do that?”

“Mm-hm,” Aubrey nodded. Juno grinned - she’d shown it to everyone. A drawing she’d found while reading that book. Delicate lineart of a bed of spring flowers, blowing in a gentle breeze. She folded the drawing up and stuffed in the front pocket of her colorful vest. Her face brightened whenever she looked at it.

Her bunny, Dr Bonkers, was curled up in Juno’s lap, his head resting in the crook of her arm. He’d gone crazy when he set eyes on her; hopping about and squeaking excitedly. She stroked her hand along his soft back until he fell asleep, at he looked like he had no intention of moving from his spot.

Barclay dragged in the chair he went to find, and then finally finished his routine by placing a big tray on the table. Coffee cups clinked and spoons rattled.

“Coffee for you?” He asked, handing one to Duck. “No offense, Duck, but you look like you could use it.”

"Oh yeah,” Duck replied, hands closing around a mug. “Thank you. Yeah, me 'n Juno were up real late."

Aubrey made a noise, and Ned made a face. Juno stifled a snort, and then another at how Duck froze in his movements and shot them all a death stare.

“Alright, y’all,” Mama said, leaning forward and grabbing a drink. “Let’s go through the shit.” Barclay reached out and rolled the whiteboard over. There were some post-it notes stuck on, and a few words taken down on its surface in red and blue sharpie.

_MOLE DEN_

_CROWS NESTS_

_JUNO’S HOUSE_

Ned reached into his jacket and pulled out what looked like a few sheets of photo paper. He flicked them over to Mama, and Juno didn’t see what was on them. 

"Okay. Juno?” Mama threw back some coffee and turned to face her. “Time to dig, honey."

“Alright.” Shit. She sat forward. Down to business.

Mama crossed her arms on the table. “How’s your head, first of all?”

“My head?”

“Yeah, you mentioned that thing took a toll on your head.”

“Right, yeah. I…”

Getting out of the house, into the light, and onto the grass. Feeling its soft green blades between her fingers, staring at it. Wondering why it was there. Juno remembered being aware of her body suddenly; her legs ached, her shoulders were shaking, and her hand prickled fiercely with pins and needles.

Juno flexed her hand. “It felt like wakin’ up, a little bit. My head felt like… like it was jet-lagged. I couldn’t move for a second.”

“Okay,” Mama’s brow furrowed, and she turned to the others. “None of y’all felt like this?”

They shook their heads. How could something that destructive have had that effect on only one of the people inside?

“That’s… that’s quite weird,” Barclay’s eyes trailed down the whiteboard.

“Did you feel anything else?” Mama asked. “Sometimes these things might talk... or put things in your head… or was it just...”

“No, no, it all went away after a second. But it… it did hurt.”

Aubrey was running her fingers along the edge of the large map, tracing along the Greenbrier river. After escaping the house, Juno had looked at Aubrey holding that light in her hands, and feeling something safe and gentle coming from her. However safe Juno could have felt at that moment, Aubrey had been a guide for it.

“Juno?” She asked, looking up. “Didn’t you go back? Anything strange happen then?”

Huh.

Juno’s house in her mind was… different. The memory of it was once an image of home, soft and light. But remembering what it was like standing on her own lawn the day before, it was completely different. She remembered it to have towered above her, tall and frightening, drenched in something dark. 

She’d pushed the thought of it all away. It only reminded her of being locked in the living room, while the house rumbled around her, her head pounding. It had felt like poison. It had been ravenous.

She remembered crawling towards the hall, and seeing the… _hand_. She remembered freezing in fear as it slowly turned in her direction, watching her like a military gun turret. She remembered shoving the door between them closed like a barricade, and then her mind being completely and utterly assaulted.

Then there was the pull. Standing before it again in the light of day, she’d felt something behind the front door. It was like the Hand had left a piece of itself behind. It was similar to the darkness of the attack, but muted. Quiet. This one hadn’t drained her mind or body, just… _beckoned_ her.

She must have been silent for a while, because everyone seemed to be waiting for an answer.

“I felt… somethin’,” she said, looking for the right words. She didn’t want to exaggerate. “Some kinda… energy, I guess.”

“Was it the same thing you felt during the fight?” Ned asked.

“It - I… it felt… similar, but not… dangerous. The time before was… like really loud and scary. But the second time, it was like it was really far away. Like it was… calling out.”

Duck stiffened in his chair.

Juno heard a squeaking sound, and looked up to see Barclay writing on the board some more.

_EFFECT ON MENTAL STATE_

“Now, Ned,” he said wearily, clicking the cap back onto the pen. “Exactly how... close and personal did you get to this thing?” He looked a little upset. Not mad, just disappointed.

“Ah, well, it was, uh… very _close_ indeed,” Ned said, chuckling.

“What’d you see? What’d it look like?”

“Black as night, with these gross yellow squiggly veins. The size of my head, maybe?” He then undid a button on the cuff of his sleeve and rolled it halfway up his forearm. “About this much of came out of the floor.”

“From the wrist up?” Barclay asked.

“Yessir - or a little bit before.” Ned fixed his sleeve, and Juno swore she spotted a glimpse of a tattoo poking out. “It wasn’t entirely… there either.”

“Okay,” He took his seat once more, and his eyes focused on the screen of that laptop. 

“Intangible?” He asked.

“Yes.”

“That means intangible weapons then,” said Mama.

 _What a concept,_ Juno thought, officially lost. She tickled one of Dr Bonkers’s ears.

“Do you know what the heck that means?” She asked him quietly. He sniffed.

“Okay, so,” Ned gestured to the board. “Why these places? Why the moles, why the crows, why Juno?”

“I would - I would love to know why, Ned,” Mama said. “But we can’t - hm… Okay, Juno?”

Juno looked up from admiring Dr Bonkers’s whiskers. “Yes?”

“Why - actually,” she turned to the rest of the group. “Any of y’all, it’s alright if you can’t answer this, but we gotta start somewhere - do y’all have _any_ idea why that Hand came for her house? Duck, you first found that thing in the woods, then Aubrey, by the Sheriff Station. Any clue?”

“I mean, I thought it was goin’ for animals,” Duck said. “Maybe it… meant to go somewhere else. Or maybe it was just… tryin’ to find something to rip apart.”

“Hm.” Mama tapped her fingers on the wooden table. “Juno?”

“God,” Juno sighed. “I don’t know… Maybe it - it came from the river?”

“The river…” Duck murmured. “The one by the mole den was near a creek.”

Ned leaned forward. “Say, that burrowing thing we caught on camera,” he said, pointing to those papers on the desk in front of Barclay, which Juno could now see were of CCTV footage. “It pretty much vanished when it hit the river. So maybe it - well, either it dug down under or found a way around. Didn’t disturb the water.”

“Hm. Yeah, you mentioned,” Barclay said softly, picking up a photo and scanning it thoughtfully. “Maybe it - maybe it moves through groundwater?”

“Hm. Could do,” said Duck. “But… No water by the sheriff station.”

Barclay cocked his head to the side. “This thing _is_ weird,” he muttered, and turned his attention back to combing through the contents of the laptop.

“Aw, Duck,” Mama said suddenly. “I forgot to ask, d’ya have one of your dreams?”

Of _course_ , Duck’s visions.

“Uh…” He crossed his arms on the table, and kept his eyes down, like he didn’t know what to do with himself. “Yeah, I did. Couple days ago.”

“You didn’t see anything useful? Nothin’ we could use to our advantage?”

“Uh… I didn’t think...” He sighed. “I saw a tree. Big ‘n black ‘n tall.”

Mama squeezed her dark eyes shut. “Duck, that - that tree didn’t happen to be... _bent_ all weird by any chance, did it?”

Duck grimaced. “Yeah. Yup.”

Juno bit back a chuckle. This happened a lot, didn’t it.

“Alright, well, Duck - that _is_ relevant -”

“I know, sorry.”

“ ‘S alright. If - if that comes to fruition or not, we’ll keep it in mind. You see where it was?”

“Uh, in the middle of a meadow, but I couldn’t tell where it was. It was… early morning. ‘N humid.”

Barclay wrote the words _BIG TREE_ and _MEADOW_ in large letters on the whiteboard, then shrugged.

"Who knows?" He said.

“Okay,” Mama continued, “ ‘N that’s it? Nothin’ else there?”

Something sour flashed in Duck’s eyes, and there was a sharp intake of breath.

“N - no.”

A quiet alarm rolled through Juno’s head as his voice lowered; as his breathing hitched; as his eyes glared into nothing.

_Lie._

“Maybe we could check out the rivers in the woods,” Aubrey said, taking Juno’s attention. “Maybe it left some kinda trail.”

“Could be a good place to go.” Mama leaned back and swiveled her chair slowly from side to side. “What’re you thinkin’? Just keepin’ an eye out, seein’ if anything’s out of place?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Aubrey nodded.

The idea of going back to the woods for a bit definitely lifted some weight.

“I’m game,” Juno said.

Mama smiled softly. “Good.”

“Do we have a name for this one yet, by the way?” Barclay asked.

Juno gave him a look. “A name?”

“Yeah, we give ‘em names.” Aubrey answered, pointing to where Barclay had written _THE HAND_ above all the notes he’d taken on the board.

“Oh, okay.” Juno said. “I mean, the Hand already feels pretty foreboding.”

Aubrey grinned. “Honestly, that’s what I was gonna say, thank you.”

It was quiet for a second. She ran her thumb over Dr Bonkers’s forehead, and Duck reached his hand over to scratch the rabbit’s soft face gently. Juno heard a quiet _clink_ sound, and saw Ned and Aubrey clinking their coffee cups together in a mock toast.

Through the window, the sunlight drifted down across the desk, and glinted off the crystal on Barclay’s bracelet. The thing that kept him from turning into Bigfoot, her brain promptly reminded her.

This world was whole new manner of strange to Juno now.

Juno’s eyes lazily trailed down to the computer. There was an old sticker on the back that caught Juno’s eye; the logo for something marked _K.E._ ; printed in a large, kind of 80s font over the silhouette of a figure with a walking stick, hiking.

Juno couldn’t figure out why looking at it pulled at her heartstrings.

* * *

“Farewell, friend! Thank you for stopping by!”

The bell at the Cryptonomica doorway chimed - a noise that filled Ned’s heart with joy - as two customers left the shop. He hadn’t recognized them, they were a couple out of towners picking up some gifts for someone’s birthday.

The door fell closed and he patted the counter. Nicely done. 

Pine Guard meetings always set the rest of the day differently. He’d driven back slowly. Pines swished past his view unbroken until he reached the main strip, where he scanned the lawns and sidewalks for any signs of disturbance. God knows where this thing would turn up again. 

His footfalls were heavy on the panelling as he made his way over to one of the displays. A small exhibit with blurry photos, a few plush toys, and a small Scottish flag standing proudly in the corner.

He peered mindlessly into the display, rearranging some pebbles and fake scales. He picked up one of the scales and held it up. Daylight shimmered off it in intricate streaks and veins, like thousands of rivers of light streaming along a rocky valley. He was pretty sure it was fake leather or something.

Scattered around the display, were little glass bottles. He’d ordered too many of those, looking at them now, it looked like they’d all just been dumped straight out of the box. Some had little scrolls inside, like letters in bottles. They were cute, and a nice touch, but he had to take some out. Clean it up a bit. He grabbed a few and made for the storage area behind the door, and then he was carrying too many and had to pocket one so he could fetch his keys from his shirt.

He cleared them away, and at the front door, the bell chimed.

On instinct, he steeled himself, whipped around and began spouting his monologue.

“Hello there, friend! Welcome to the Cryp -” he stopped, seeing who it was standing in the doorway.

“Juno?”

“Hey, Ned,” she said softly. He’d only just seen her that afternoon.

His shoulders fell a little when she approached the counter, the door closing and ringing the bell again. She had shadows beneath her eyes that he hadn’t noticed before.

“Well, how can I help you, Juno?” He leaned across the counter, crossing his arms. “Can I offer you something to - something to drink? Coffee? Cola?” He lowered his voice. “That’s, uh - That’s all I have.”

Juno’s lips curled into a smile. "I'm… alright for drinks. Um… I was hopin’ I talk to you ‘bout something.” She glanced around the empty shop. “If you have a minute?”

“Of - of course,” he said, straightening up. “What’s on your mind?”

“Thank you. Right.” She raked a hand through her hair and sighed. “Okay. I know that all this -” she gestured to the displays and exhibits, “runs quite deep. I know that now. Like, a lot of it’s real. A lot of it… might be _here._ I know, I don't fully understand everythin’ yet, but I have to bring it up to someone and you seem like a nice guy to talk to, so what the hell.”

Ned ignored how that warmed his heart.

“As far as I am aware, Ned Chicane, when you come into contact with a… monster? Cryptid? Abomin -”

“Bom-bom,” he said. “We call ‘em bom-boms.”

She snapped her fingers and shook her head. “Right. With a bom-bom,” she took a deep breath. “You kinda - and I’m not saying it’s a _bad_ thing - but you tend to try ‘n… profit off what you find.”

Ned blinked. Juno was… damn right. Big beautiful Bigfoot came along and the video may have made a killing and saved his store but not a day went by when he didn’t wish it’d gone a bit differently.

“You, uh -” He cleared his throat. “You’re not wrong.”

Juno stepped forward. “Now, I don’t know how these things usually go, but,” her eyes trailed down to the counter where Ned was resting an elbow on some papers.

“With things like this -” She reached for the papers and Ned lifted his elbow so she could take them, and only when she examined them did he see that they were actually a copy of the Lamplighter.

Juno looked back up at him, almost pleadingly. “I’m askin’ you, _please_ don’t put anything about what hurt my home in here.”

That’s what she was concerned with? Well, he definitely hasn’t made a name for himself in the Pine Guard for being a man of secrecy.

Juno stood there, exhausted, and begging him not to do one single thing. At least it was something that hadn’t even crossed his mind.

“I’m not gonna do that, Juno. I promise, I - I wasn’t even thinking about it.” He gave her a smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep this… swept under the rug from - from ol’ Kirby.”

Juno sighed and tossed the Lamplighter back on the countertop. “Thank you, Ned. That’s, uh… put my mind at ease, somewhat. I’ve been… a little stressed, if you couldn’t tell.”

“Well, I don’t blame you. It’s stressful business.”

“You’re tellin’ me?”

Ned patted the counter. “You’re sure I can’t get you anything?”

“Nah, you’re good.” Her eyes trailed along the counter to where a couple plush toys sat beside the register. She picked up a Mothman and inspected it with a soft smile. “Heh. Indrid.”

He sputtered. “Wh - Yeah! How’d you -? Ah, Duck give you the rundown?”

“Yeah, he did,” she grinned. She put Mothman back and pointed to the Bigfoot. “And that’s… Barclay -”

“Barclay, yeah.”

“And she…?” She pointed to a Nessie.

“Mm, haven’t met her yet.”

“Oh, okay.” She chuckled. “I’d love to meet _her_.”

“So would I.”

“Anyway, I gotta get back hom - to Duck’s apartment.” She turned and headed for the door again.

“Ah, sure, sure. How you doing over there, by the way?”

“I’m - I’m okay. It’s not the… ideal arrangement, but…” She thought for a moment. “He’s makin’ it easy.”

“I thought he might.”

Juno pulled the door, and the bell chimed again. “Thanks again, Ned.”

“See you later!”

It was strange, he thought, no longer being the new face at the table. That there was someone new in the Pine Guard’s ranks. 

No one seemed worried that she might spill the beans. She was definitely taking it all seriously. Not that he would’ve taken to it all any differently if it had been his home that had gotten caught up in this mess. She was a sweetheart, and it was a shame her house had to be taken out so ruthlessly.

Neds eyes were locked on a little donation box on the counter. A blue plastic container. It probably only carried a couple coins. Juno’s face flashed in his mind again. Her soft smile touched with homesickness.

Then, like lightning, Ned was struck with an idea, and this one was a doozy.

"Oh… oh my…"

Finally - something he knew for sure would do good.

Near the back of the store, there was a storage cabinet. Ned rushed over and tugged open its metal doors - a little stiff in the hinges - and scoured its contents closely. It was dark back here and the doors obscured the light. There had to be something in here he could use.

He managed to spot what he was looking for. He reached in and pulled out a dusty old empty shoebox. That’d do nicely. He wondered when he could get a start on this. Looking around the store, as daylight cast the empty space aglow, he huffed.

“How ‘bout right damn now?” 

Ned stepped outside. When he looked down at the keys in his hands to lock up, he caught a pop of color out the corner of his eye where he didn’t usually see it.

He looked down, and in the crack between the wall and the sidewalk, were three tiny pink flowers, bursting from the concrete like fists to the sky.

Ned just stared at them.

“Those…” he said under his breath, “were _not_ there this morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whey
> 
> Might not be a chapter for a while. gotta get the next one ready!!


	7. All Day I've Faced The Barren Waste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aubrey makes some waves, Juno lends a hand, Ned takes the shot, and Duck makes a connection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY!!!!!!!! another big lad - why it took a long time !!
> 
> this chapter's songs are:  
> \- Pool by Disasterpeace  
> \- Come Away to the Water by Maroon 5 and Rozzi  
> \- Origins by Ryan Taubert  
> and Life As A Flower by Vincent Diamante - for the last scene :)
> 
> [don't forget to check out the playlist!!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3U6dgxlZjT5um5jN91B2ap?si=CpVWEHLRTEenIdWUP6hdoQ) enjoy the read!!

Back in the forest, it all felt different. As though she drifted through the woodland independent of her feet, and watched the canopy of leaves above move by, seemingly as endless as clouds in the sky. The forest was gentle, and everything in it existed so strangely. Soft traffic of flies flitting in the light, the scraping of squirrels' claws on tree bark, or a menagerie of lilting chirps and chatter. It was like time standing still and frantically rolling on at once.

Decades of work had gone into understanding the workings of all this, and she could tell she wasn’t even close.

Her footsteps on the dry forest floor felt like the only sounds disturbing the stillness - save for a flycatcher filling the air with a smooth pattern of soft whistles, and the hushed voices of the Pine Guard at her side.

Midday brought warmth, and Juno gazed at the way the trail reacted to her boots as she took each step.

“Ground’s bone dry,” she said solemnly. “We need rain.”

“I can see. Oh man,” said Aubrey, sunlight streaming into her red hair, gleaming through it so that her head looked to be ablaze - Lady Flame indeed. She kicked at the trail with her boot, and sent a few pebbles tumbling ahead of them. It scattered around as though it were gravel, or sand.

“Sunshine on a forest can be a beast,” Juno said, reaching out her hand and brushing her fingertips along a firework of ferns at the edge of the path.

“I like the sunshine,” Aubrey said, gazing up at the sky. “Reminds me of the beach.”

Of course, after that winter, Juno was more than grateful for it.

Every now and then, the leaves would rustle a certain way, or someone behind her would drag their foot along the ground, and she’d mistake the noise for a river rushing in the distance. She knew where the rivers were. She knew they were a ways away from the closest one.

Aubrey was flexing her fingers, and examining the lines in her hands, lit by the sun.

“I feel a little weird,” Aubrey said, eyes on the trail. “For suggesting this.”

Juno slowed down a bit, matching her speed.

“Why’s that now?” She asked.

“Just in case it… y’know - turns out to be nothing. Feels like it’d be kind of a waste of time to just… go on a group hike when something or somebody on the other side of town might be in danger.”

Their walking pace slowed. “I don’t know how… valuable my opinion is here, but… I think you should have faith in yourself, Aubrey. You’re smart.”

Aubrey huffed.

“I mean that. And you know it.” She gave her a nudge. Juno was only just now getting to know Aubrey Little in earnest, but she could tell she had one hell of a spirit. "Besides, 's the first time I've been back in the woods the last few days. So, this is a good day."

Duck had filled Juno in on some monsters the three of them had faced, and how they’d overcome them. Those explanations often included Aubrey cleverly solving a problem, or rushing forth to pull someone from the line of fire. This girl was fearless, but had a brain brimming with doubt.

They all kept walking, their paces changing every now and then, shifting like tides drifting back and forth. Sunlight spilled through the trees and scattered along the ground, the gaps in the leaves above looking like stencils. The ground began to slope up and down as the terrain got uneven and ragged.

They stopped when Aubrey spotted a caterpillar on the branch of a tree that Ned almost walked into.

“That looks badass!” She said brightly.

“That is awful, what the hell?” Ned said, putting about ten or fifteen feet between himself and the caterpillar.

It was black with orange spots down its body, had funny-looking spikes over it, and what looked like horns on its head. It moved slowly across the bark of a pine.

“Oh, hell yeah,” said Duck, looking closer. “Pipevine thingy.”

Juno grinned, and carried on walking. “Don’t worry, Ned,” she said, hands in her pockets. “When they grow up they turn into a big blue butterfly.” The orange flecks across its body reminded her of a patch of poppies she once grew in her garden, and her heart began to hurt.

“Okay,” he replied, gladly turning on his heel. “Good to know.”

Aubrey scampered after him, boots thudding across the trail. Juno and Duck soon fell back into each other’s strides.

Drops of sunlight rolled across him into the shadow of his hat, his eyes shielded from the light. She’d woken up that morning with her face buried in her pillow and a hand on Duck’s chest. Lily chirped somewhere nearby and Juno’s hand had fumbled around, trying to find her. Then her fingers brushed Duck’s stubble and she hit him in the face, waking him. She vaguely registered it, but apologized, barely awake, and he fell back asleep.

“ _Duck Newton, can your legs carry you any slower? Your idea of stimulating conversation is akin to that of the droning weeknight television._ ”

“Christ,” Duck replied, as Juno eyed the disgruntled frown attached to the strip of steel around Duck’s hips. “That’s a new one.”

“Is he always that whiney?” She asked.

"You tune it out, after a while," Duck said, eyes forward.

“Sounds like somethin’ I’m gonna have to learn.”

Beacon hissed. Literally. He hissed like a snake.

Juno laughed. “You’re a freak,” she sighed.

Duck brought a hand to his mouth to stifle a snort, and his shoulders shook with laughter.

" _Whhhat_ ," Beacon snarled _._ " _Did you just say_?"

“Nothin’.”

" _Repeat_ ," he demanded.

“You’re just, you’re just so - _I’m talkin’ to a sword_. You’re just kinda not intimidating when you’re not… in use. So y’know, why bother? Why not just get along?”

Beacon yawned. “ _Carry on, try to get under my skin_.”

“You don’t have skin.”

“ _Oh, nevermind what I said, Duck, I hate her_."

Juno, offended for a moment, glanced up at Duck. “Wh -"

“If y’all wouldn’t mind,” he said, dragging a hand down his face. “I don’t think I’m particularly pleased with the way this conversation is goin', so if we could just -”

“ _I agree_ ,” Beacon grinned. “ _I do, in fact, grow bored with her voice_.”

Juno huffed. “I’m not too appreciative of your attitude either, mister. Why so grouchy?"

Duck held the bridge of his nose. “Y’all, can we not pipe down just a -”

" _Well, I spent about 20 years in the beast’s trophy room, then was retrieved without warning and thrusted back into training, in a just barely improved living space, and I had just got used to the goddamn cat and then up shows someone even more intolerable. There is a great deal about you that angers me. I can list them off - you walk so slowly, we’ll have more than enough time -”_

Juno snapped. She scanned the forest floor and scooped up a dirty pinecone, grabbed Duck by the hip and yanked him towards her, and shoved the pinecone right in Beacon's mouth.

"Shut the fuck up," she told him.

It was dead silent for a beat before Beacon spat out the pinecone in disgust. It landed back on the ground where it belonged with a soft thud. Juno waited for another remark, but he said nothing.

“There,” Juno said, looking back at Duck, satisfied.

Duck stared at her in disbelief. "I - I, uh. Good - good job," he croaked.

“Butter wouldn’t melt,” chimed Ned, watching smugly from a few paces away.

"Anyway," Juno said, grinning. "Dipshit aside, there's the creek." She pointed.

Up ahead, a creek rolled down, from the base of a small waterfall. It lazily drifted down, lined with large rocks. Further on, it spilled into a large pond where small fish swam and swished below the surface. Their silver scales caught the light, and shimmered like the dragonfly drifting through the air above the water. It flew towards the bank, watched closely by Aubrey, and snaked over an old picnic table.

“I don't really know where to start with this,” Aubrey said nervously.

“I'm sure we'll figure it out,” said Juno.

“This thing leaves behind… kinda broken dirt ‘n weirdly twisted branches,” Duck explained, peering into the water. “Anything like that would indicate its... presence, I guess.”

“Also,” Ned added, and pointed at Juno. “You let us know if you feel weird in the head again.”

“I always feel weird in the head,” she smiled as Ned strolled off up the bank, overstepping the stream and looking around.

“ ‘N the weird black stuff,” said Duck. “I got no idea - oh shit, wait.”

He unzipped the pocket on the left-hand side of his jacket, and made a face when he found something in there.

“Oh shit, I still have it.” He retrieved it, and Juno stared at it in his hand. A little plastic container, with some kind of black substance. Flecks of sunlight beamed into it, catching its strange consistency.

"Duck, the heck is that?" Juno asked.

"One sec." He popped the lid off. “What’s that smell like to you?”

Her eyebrows flew up. “Duck, this is weird.”

“No, I know, but it was around that mole den. And on the tree. I think it’s part of the Hand’s whole… thing.”

“Oh.” She took a whiff. “I - Jesus. Wait, hold still. It’s kinda -” she sniffed again. “It’s kinda briny. It’s weird.”

“I thought it smelled like the ocean.”

“A little bit. Seaweed-y. What is it, like a calling card? I didn’t see it at my house.”

“A callin’ card,” he grinned. “I - maybe. We slammed the door on it.”

“ ‘S a funny detail.”

Duck clipped the lid back on, and tapped it with his fingers.

“Yeah,” he sighed, his eyes flitting around before landing on her face. “We’ll -”

“You guys gonna look around, or keep on chatting?!” Aubrey called, from the other side of the bank, across from Ned. Sunlight sparkled on her earring all the way from where Juno was standing.

Grassy knolls crept away from the bank and into the trees, dusted with daisies. Juno spotted a squirrel zipping up one tree and hopping into another; birds fluttered to the sky in a sharp rattling of leaves. Small twigs and pine needles tumbled through the air, into a carpet of duckweed sitting on the water. The cracks in the leaves sprawling like veins, reflecting the trees and sky.

Juno stared. In the middle of the pond, there was movement in the water. Leaves and duckweed slowly parted from each other, like the dark water had stirred below. Sunlight caught it briefly before disappearing, as the gap in the duckweed grew larger. It rippled, and rolled outwards, disturbing the water far and wide.

Juno looked up, into the canopy above, for leaves swaying in wind. She peered between branches, searching for any sign of a breeze.

There was none.

“Duck,” she murmured.

In the center of the pond, the water began to bubble, growing darker, like it had been dyed black. Fish scattered towards the edges of the pond, startled by the disturbance. They were trapped, in a dark, swirling spiral. 

Duck appeared at her side, and watched.

She swore she could hear something. A whispering, or a distant wind. Drowned and closing in around them. The water rippled, then returned to black stillness.

Juno looked at Duck, anxiety overtaking.

“Do you hear that?” She asked, breathless.

He nodded. Either side of the pond, Ned and Aubrey had turned, still, staring into the water. Aubrey’s gloved hand reached out, and pointed.

“That,” she warned.

Ned shifted, reaching into his big coat. “Get ready!” He yelled.

Juno felt it coming. “Get Beacon out.”

She wasn’t looking, but she heard the bright, metallic sound of Beacon quickly unfurling. Something in the pit of her stomach dropped, and something in the back of her mind pounded.

Duck peered into the water, and Beacon grinned. Eager, and hungry.

“Where the hell is the -” 

The sun went behind a cloud.

Duck’s voice was nothing in a deafening rumble, and what felt like the crash of an ocean wave in a hurricane. Juno almost lost her feet as the black water broke like the ground below was ripped from beneath it. 

It emerged, sending water bounding out as if in an explosion. There were flickers of light, but they were muted against a mighty blackness. It was like a rift of black ink carved into a shape. The Hand turned and rotated its wrist, setting its sights on the humans it faced. Its veins flicked and wriggled as it moved.

Shadows rose like mist off a lake, and the world rumbled. The water swirled like a whirlpool around the Hand, and everyone could tell what was happening.

Duck lurched off the bank, free hand reaching behind him as Juno threw herself down. The water reached her knees. Up ahead on the bank, Ned stayed rooted behind a tree, and she spotted bright flashes of orange and blue.

“Do you still hear it?!” Juno shouted. Duck broke into a staggered run.

Aubrey leapt off the bank into the water, steadying herself on a low-hanging branch. She raised her hands, and squeezed her eyes closed for just a moment. “Let’s go,” she breathed, her soft voice nearly lost in the rumble. “Let’s go.”

Juno felt a shift at her feet. Her gaze snapped down and she realized what Aubrey was doing, and almost choked.

The water at her and Duck’s ankles had parted, almost all the way to the Hand, paving a path directly through the pool.

“Holy shit,” she gasped.

“Aubrey, that’s rad!” Duck shouted, and ran through towards the fray.

Ahead, Ned yelled something, and Juno could make out, through the shadows, that what he was holding was a gun. A big, bright, complicated-looking gun. 

Duck had Beacon out, and brought him down on the Hand with a yell. It looked like he cut right through it, but the Hand wisped out of sight into its shadow, and popped back out behind him. It went on for a few moments - dodging around from the blade - like a game of whack-a-mole.

In a flash, the Hand appeared once more in front of him, and he stopped with his sword raised. His eyes narrowed and trailed across its palm, as if they were holding each other’s strange gaze.

Duck glared. “Alright, motherfucker,” he growled. He reared back once more, and it slipped below its shadow.

“Duck, watch yourself!” Ned yelled from the bank. He crouched over the edge, and watched over the field. He scanned everything in sight, and something felt so different as his eyes inspected it so closely. He looked so angry.

There was a rupturing, and a strong black wave rushed forth into the two rangers. Juno’s back slammed into the bank and she felt a rock jut into the back of her neck. She saw stars, and the roaring sound staggered in her ears.

“ _¡Ay_ , _fuck_!” She cried. A few feet away, Duck went under, and the Hand resurfaced.

She stumbled, leaning against the bank and clutching at her neck. Her fingernails sunk into the marsh of the bank and she rested her weight on it as she moved towards Duck. His head shot out of the water and he cursed under his breath. She reached down and grabbed his arm and pulled him up to his feet.

“Don’t fuckin’ fall!” She yelled over the storm, and he stared at her, bewildered.

And he kept staring at her, and his eyes flew around her face like she was inconceivable.

“Oh my _God_ ,” he coughed, and another wave knocked into them.

Aubrey’s arms had lowered, and she was panting out shaking breaths. In the darkness, she looked drained of energy. Slowly, the path she’d cut through the water began to fill again. 

“I’m -” she breathed. “Come on. Come on.” Juno saw Aubrey raise her hands once more, eyes fiery.

Then Juno couldn’t see Aubrey anymore, because the girl was knocked from her feet, and ripped below the surface.

“Fuck, Aubrey!” Juno yelled, and surged through the water towards her. 

Juno could see Aubrey’s boots, faded under the black water. She reared back her arm to shove her hand in the water, but a bout of water swelled and crashed into her. It stung. She staggered back, and her heart began pounding louder than the loud thundering around her.

She went to scream Aubrey’s name and it got caught in her throat.

From the bank above, came a voice.

“ _Wait!_ ”

Ned.

Then the world was filled with light. Not sunlight, not daylight. This was different. It was blinding, and warm, and it rushed directly into the Hand like a missile.

The beam of light carried the shadowy bastard all the way across the water and blasted it against the bank. Juno was reminded of the stinging in her neck when black water and duckweed was catapulted in every direction.

“Fuckin’, eat that up, motherfucker!” Ned cried triumphantly, swinging the brightly-colored gun around.

Duck sprinted through the water faster than Juno had ever seen him run. Through the shadows, the Hand was half submerged in the black water but was picking itself up. Juno watched it like a fucking hawk, but caught the sound of Aubrey snapping out of the water, coughing wildly.

The water swirled around her feet strangely, and Juno glanced down. It parted again, only around Aubrey and Duck. They had a clear rounded space, that swirled and shifted around them as Duck guided her backwards.

The Hand lined up to make another move, and slowly turned to face the two again. The water rippled and breathed and shuddered. And it seemed to grow darker as the Hand creeped towards Aubrey and Duck like a street cat on the prowl.

Juno threw herself in front of them, and stood rooted, water lashing at her legs. The pool lurched around her and she staggered forward, holding a hand out to steady herself.

The Hand froze. It resisted, and Juno could feel that resistance in her head. She felt its panic. She could feel its confusion. It didn’t like her.

The roar of the world around them dimmed, and Juno’s eyes narrowed, but she kept her hand extended.

“What’s wrong with you?” She murmured, pissed off and in pain.

Juno took a step, and things rapidly began to change. Sounds got louder; cold was colder; warmth was hotter; dark was darker and light got brighter. She squinted through the shadows, and scowled at the popping golden veins running throughout its wrist.

She could hear Duck yelling, and hear Ned’s footsteps running toward her, but they were far away, and there’d be no point in turning around if she couldn’t reach them. There was heat on the back of her neck, and she slowed her breathing until the stinging went away.

“I’m not afraid of you this time,” she whispered. “Why are you afraid of me?”

Black water sloshed around her legs, cold setting in, and she took another step.

The Hand scurried back, still shrouded in its black mist. It closed its fingers to remain in Juno’s shadow against the marshy bank, and it reminded Juno of a person crouching to take shelter. It was almost invisible under her silhouette. The warmth on her neck grew softer, and she heard a scratching noise in her head. Kind and droning.

Juno Divine took one step to the side, and then the sun came out.

The Hand changed as sunlight hit it. It was made of wood; its black shadowy surface was like gnarled oak; fingers like roots, with fresh green leaves sprouting from its veins, which were still there, still glowing gold.

“How -” Juno didn’t hear herself as the Hand hurtled forward and dived below the water. The rumble resumed for one moment before disappearing with the monster, silence and sounds of the forest taking its place.

The water pulsed before it rushed back into its place like a tide crashing into shore. As the wave burst against the bank, Juno watched as the black water shifted colors. The water caught sunlight in mid-air and shimmered, clear as it was meant to be.

All movement settled, the pool was calm, and the fight was over.

Aubrey was latched onto Duck, who looked from the younger girl to Juno with something in his eyes that felt familiar.

“Hey, Duck?” Ned appeared on the bank, above a slope over which he held out his hand, gesturing for Aubrey to climb up. Duck turned and boosted her up. She was coughing violently, clutching at her chest, and her legs shook as she held onto Ned. Juno couldn’t tell if she was shaking from the cold or shock.

She bounded through the water towards the bank, and Duck took her hand when she reached him. Beacon was back around his belt, and wore a glum frown.

“I’m - I’m sorry,” Aubrey rasped against Ned’s chest. Juno’s eyes widened and she rushed up the slope, dragging Duck with her and being careful not to slip.

“Shit, Aubrey,” Juno sighed - half relief, half exhaustion. “That was… crazy, girl.”

They guided Aubrey over to the picnic table, and she slumped down with a clear of her throat. Juno took the space beside her and held her to her chest. She looked so tired, like her fire was dwindling and it needed time to ignite again.

“Guys, look,” said Ned, pointing. A few feet from where they stood, tracked across the grass, was that black substance Duck had showed her not minutes ago.

“That thing showed up after you brought it out.” Ned stepped towards it, staring. “What do you think it is?”

Duck bit his lip, and his brow furrowed. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe just… a trail or… footprint? Why?”

“Well… Hm.” Ned pulled something from his jacket’s inside pocket, and it caught the light as he moved. He got to his knees and nudged the bottle through the black substance, and gathered as much in as he could.

Duck scowled. “Ned, the fuck are you doing? That shit’s dangerous!”

"Not dangerous,” he said, and spun around and faced them all with a wide grin.

“ _Bait_.”

* * *

“Get in there,” Mama ordered, “We can’t have Stern seein’ y’all like this.”

The towel was scratchy at the back of Aubrey’s neck as she shivered her way down the steps into the cellar. She peeled off her jacket and dropped it over the back of a chair.

Mama shepherded everyone around the table, Barclay in tow, who found more towels and handed them out. Juno rubbed her hands together, trying to warm herself, and looked around the cellar, bewildered.

“Good God,” she said, eyes falling on the familiar whiteboard in the corner. “The hell are we now?”

"Safe place," Aubrey answered. "Within the safe place."

Juno nodded."Okay,” she sighed. “Super safe."

“I’m gonna be honest with y’all -” Mama was heaving everything from the table into her arms and dumping it on the floor as she spoke. “I know you went out lookin’ for this thing, but I did _not_ expect you to find it.”

Duck stretched, backed up against a pillar, and winced. “Yup - neither did we. Ugh.”

Aubrey rubbed the towel up and down her arms. Her red hair dye was already bleeding into the white fabric. She was searching her brain for the correct way to wash it out when she felt soft pressure on her earlobe. She jumped and looked to her side.

“You lost an earring, baby,” Juno said solemnly.

“Oh, oh no.” Aubrey reached up and squeezed her ears. Yup - her right stud was missing. “Shit. I’ve had those forever.”

A hot cup of something appeared in front of Juno as she took a seat, but the man who placed it in front of her didn’t meet her gaze. Her eyes followed Barclay sourly for a moment, set above dark circles. Aubrey shook her head. Okay, what was their deal?

“Any of you hurt?” Mama asked, voice slightly distant as she poked her head through the door to the infirmary.

“Nothin’ too bad,” Duck said. “Couple banged up heads. Aubrey, you don’t feel anything?”

“No, I’m okay. Just cold,” she answered. Juno rubbed her shoulder affectionately.

“Your neck okay?” He asked Juno. She nodded silently.

Barclay set down the laptop and let it boot up. He and Ned shared a glance.

“You seem to be the, uh - driest of everyone,” Barclay said, voice down.

“I kept my distance this time,” he gave him a soft smile. “Don’t you worry.”

Mama walked back to the table, casting a glance to the whiteboard. “Okay. Tell me what happened,” she said, leaning on the back of an empty chair.

Ned cracked his knuckles, and Aubrey saw Barclay cringe. “Right, remember that weird gunk Duck found in the woods?”

Mama stared wearily for a second. “Like,” she sighed.“Like it was yesterday, why?”

“He still had it with him. And the second he opened it, the thing showed up.”

Mama hummed.

“That’s why I -” he fished through his jacket and pulled out the little bottle, “- Grabbed this. I don’t know for sure, ‘cause I never do, but it felt… immediate. It felt like bait.”

Aubrey heard the squeaking on sharpie on the whiteboard. She looked up and saw _BLACK LIQUID - BAIT (???)_ written on it in blue.

“Okay, well, don’t uncap it in here or I’ll uncap you,” Mama said, sternly.

“Got it.”

“I’ve never… seen anything like it,” Juno said softly. “It was… awful. 

“You could see it properly this time?” Mama asked, crossing her arms and standing up straight.

“Yes, my head was fine. It didn’t really… come after me.” Her eyes widened. “Oh, wait - listen, before it disappeared, it changed. It turned into somethin’... I don’t know, but it was like black and shadowy before. But I swear to God it changed before it left. It was hard to see, but it turned into wood. Like a big wooden hand, with veins and vines.”

She sighed heavily, staring at her hands. “It was awesome, but it was horrible.”

Aubrey folded her hands on the table, noticing they rested on a print out of something. She lifted her hands and saw that strange CCTV footage Ned at caught. The image was all distorted and blurred in the night, but she could spot the dark, burrowing trail, and a faint glimmer of light.

“Where was this again?” She asked, holding it up.

Ned lowered his mug, which he was about to drink from. “Just behind the Cryptonomica, by the river.”

“Can I see it?” Juno asked.

“Sure,” Aubrey slid it across the table in her direction. She peered at the black and white image staring up at her.

“Hm. Is that the Hand?”

“Maybe,” Ned shrugged. “I’m not sure, but it’s weird enough that I don’t - I don’t know what else it could be.”

Juno’s eyebrows flicked up for a second. “Looks pretty mole-ish to me. Like a mole hill.”

The moment she said that, Duck leaned across the table and his eyes locked onto the image. His gaze slowly lifted to the whiteboard, and she could see where he read over the words, _MOLE DEN, CROWS NEST, JUNO’S HOUSE_ in his head.

He walked over to the board. “This thing… hit the moles, and then moved through the ground to get the tree with the birds.”

Aubrey gasped softly. “Oh shit, do you think it…”

“Maybe it… learned. Know what I’m sayin’?”

Mama nodded. “Yeah, I know. You think it… picks up things from what it attacks?”

“Maybe.” Duck moved back towards the table. “But I don’t know what it would’ve gotten from the crows that it coulda used to get to you.” He glanced down at Juno.

“Hm.”

“Did it fly at some point? That’d make sense.” Aubrey said.

“Only when I hit it with the Narfblaster. Goddamn sharpshooter.”

Duck clicked his tongue. “Okay. Hey, what else can birds do, Juno?” Duck chuckled and gave Juno a nudge before returning to his empty seat.

“Uh, shit, I don’t… Possibly their sight? Or their hearing?”

“Think skill rather than sense.”

“Crows can find things. They can solve puzzles. ‘Specially these days.” “Did it… did it _want_ me for something?”

“Let’s go with that for now, what else do we have?”

“I hate this thing,” Duck declared, and shoved his hands over his face.

“So, if it got the ability to move from the moles, and the ability to… hunt, I guess, from the birds, what was it trying to get from _me_?”

Aubrey wrapped her hands around her hot tea, warmth seeping into her cold fingers. “I was wondering that” she said. “It was right on top of your house.”

“I mean, _I_ don’t have any connection to it, do I?”

Duck quietly whimpered into his hands. Aubrey nudged his leg under the table until his eyes appeared between his fingers. “What’s the matter?” She murmured, voice low.

He shook is head slightly and let his hands drop. “Nothin’, s’fine.” He cleared his throat and sat up straight.

“ _You_ did something,” he said to Juno, “And it made it go away.”

“I don’t know what I did.” Juno looked down at her own hands. “I scared it.”

“What do you mean, you scared it?” Barclay asked, sitting down again and looking at her over the lid of the laptop.

“It was like… I could _hear_ it, but it wasn’t… sayin’ anything. It was like I was somewhere else; everything was saturated and loud. Oh, I heard something. A weird noise, like a scratching, droning thing the closer I got to it.”

“You _have_ to be careful when that happens. You never know how something’s gonna get you.”

“Listen,” Duck said. “The second that thing touched the sunlight, it went down.”

“Okay, sunlight? This a lot, y’all.”

Barclay rolled his chair back and wrote _SUNLIGHT_ in big letters on the board. “And it -” his head whirled around to look at Juno again, albeit eye contact slightly wavered. “It turned into… wood?”

Juno took a deep breath into her chest, thinking. “Yes, and… I don’t know why. Or actually, how it did if it gettin’ something out of the pool, in the same way it was gettin’ stuff out of the others.”

“Okay, this is interesting.” Mama said, reaching down to take a sip of tea. “So.” She tapped her fingers on the wood of the desk. She meant business. “Offense. Was it hurt when you hit it with your gun, Ned?”

“Definitely shook it up something fierce, but that was before it transformed into wood, I didn’t really see that happen. It might be stronger now.”

“Hold the phone,” Juno said, skeptical. “But surely, made of wood -” Juno waggled her fingers at Aubrey. “Set it on fire?" She 

Aubrey smiled brightly, and Duck groaned. “Really?”

“Don’t worry, Duck. I started following the Smokey Bear twitter account like you asked.”

“That’s a good start.”

“Fire safety, fire unsafety, meh, whatever - Aubrey.”

“Yes, Mama?”

“What happened with you?”

Aubrey clicked a finger. “I did… something pretty cool. I used the water! I was able to get it to move and like, part so Juno and Duck could get closer to the Hand.”

“Goddammit, it was awesome, girl.” Juno grinned.

Mama smiled. “Well, I think y’all should recover for a little bit.” She glanced at the whiteboard. “There’ll probably be a bit of a wait before it shows up again.”

Aubrey let out a big sigh, resting her elbows on the table. “Hey, anything on Thacker’s laptop?”

Between Barclay, Mama and Juno, it was like someone threw open a window to an icy storm.

Barclay’s face crumpled, and he closed his eyes, as if he couldn’t bear to look at the computer in front of him. Mama was leaning against a pillar, and a sadness flashed in her eyes Aubrey had only seen a few times. And Juno’s eyes stayed on Aubrey, until they stared right through her. Slowly, her gaze moved to Mama.

“What does she mean?” Her voice was thinner, yet firmer than she’d ever heard it. Her knuckles turned white on her crossed arms.

Barclay’s eyes opened, and watched, and Mama looked down at her feet. Tired, and unhappy. No one answered.

Juno reached out, pulled the laptop away from Barclay and closer to her, its underside almost screeching on the wooden surface. Her thumb traced the edge of the worn old sticker on its open lid. Her eyes went soft. 

“This was _his…_ ” she whispered. Aubrey was watching something unfold. She’d set it in motion and yet she had no idea what it was. 

Juno spoke slowly, eye darting between Barclay and Mama. “Is this what he was doin’?”

“Yes, it was.” Mama said, meeting her gaze. “Sweetheart, it was.”

Juno got to her feet and ran her hands through her drenched hair. “Oookay, okay.” The way Juno’s eyes darted around as her mind started racing reminded Aubrey so much of Janelle. “Okay, well, wh - where did he go? Where did he - why didn’t he tell me -”

Mama stepped forward, and put on her mother voice. “Juno, I’m sorry, sweetheart, but ya need to calm down.”

Juno suddenly squeezed her hands into fists, seemingly realizing something else. She took a step back and pointed her fingers at Barclay.

“ _You_ \- Oh, God,” she gasped, covering her face. "You two were -"

Barclay shot to his feet, chair screeching against the floorboards. " _Don't_ ," he said, eyes pleading.

“ _What_ is happening?” Ned asked, looking quite alarmed in everyone’s favor.

“Juno, listen.” Mama held out a hand, and spoke calmly. “He is _not_ who you remember him as. Okay? He’s a man possessed right now. He went to Sylvain, and somethin’ got him. Into his head. Alright? You with me?”

“Yes,” Juno said softly, standing still, and listening.

Mama gently put her hand around Juno’s wrist. “I found him in Sylvain, and he gave me a hell of a scratch. We brought him back, he tried to kill these three. He isn’t behind his eyes right now, there’s somethin’ in him. And it’s nasty, and it is… monstrous. I’m sorry.”

Juno put a closed fist to her lips, and breathed in and out carefully. “Okay, okay.”

Barclay sat back down in his chair and tightly joined his hands, knuckles white, eyes closing. Ned watched him like there were questions waiting to spill from his mouth.

Mama pulled Juno towards her and hugged her. “I’m so sorry, honey, but there’s one last thing.” Aubrey curled into herself in the chair, skin cold against the air, warm with Juno’s soft sorrow.

And she watched Juno follow Mama’s gaze to the panic room door.

* * *

Duck waited a while before following his friend outside.

He wandered up the side of the Lodge before he found Juno sitting on the front steps, expression pensive, staring out just ahead in the direction of the dirt road. From where he was, it looked like she was petting something in her lap.

He rounded the porch and spotted a tuft of soft red fur between her fingers. The railing of the steps creaked softly as he leaned on them, and alerted her to his presence.

“Made a friend?” He asked, eyeing the red squirrel in her lap.

She gave him a weak smile and nodded. Her eyes were tired, and her cheeks were pink. Something flickered in his chest and he wished he understood her pain.

“Sorry that I rushed outta there,” she said, looking back out into the trees.

“Don’t worry ‘bout that.” Duck approached and cautiously sat next to her, afraid of startling the squirrel, but it showed no signs of worry. “Listen, I didn’t know you’d… that you knew Thacker when he was… still around. Or I think I did and it just… didn’t click.”

She shook her head softly. “When I saw Mama in the Lodge last week, I - I _knew_ that somehow he was a part of all this. I ain’t seen him in six years.”

“That’s hard,” he said, rubbing his hands together.

Juno sighed softly, and he could hear a shudder in its sound.

She looked at him. “Is he really -?” She began. Duck’s mind filled in the space with words Mama had said; possessed, monstrous, nasty. He hadn’t been close with Thacker. Most of what he knew were secondhand accounts from Juno. She loved that man.

She bit the inside of her cheek and looked back down at the squirrel. Its red fur looked soft against her fingers, and it looked around wildly at the world.

“He’s got a big beard now,” Duck said, nudging her arm. She smiled weakly. “I’m sure we’ll find a way to get him back. Magic is real, who knows what can happen.”

Juno nodded, and sniffed.

“Listen, I’m sorry,” he said, looking away into the trees.

“What for, Duck?”

“Not tellin’ you.”

She waved a hand. “Oh, it’s okay,” she said softly. “I’m keepin’ it a secret too, now. Don’t worry, I understand.”

He wanted to ask about Barclay, but he imagined it would help none.

"I'm exhausted," she said, slumping sideways into him. Her head rested against his shoulder, and she scooped the squirrel up and back on the ground. He watched it scamper away and put an arm around her shoulders, resting his chin on her damp hair.

"I know you are,” he said, voice softer than he’d intended.

The sun was out, making the most of the gaps between clouds. It was nice to be out of that cellar. Its walls seemed to carry the stories of the old Pine Guard, and if you were in there long enough, you’d probably witness a few uncomfortable ones resurface.

But out here, in the parking lot at the front of the Lodge, it was clean, and bright, and quiet. It reminded Duck of his favorite things about Kepler; maples and pines outlining the world, soft crunching of gravel underneath your hiking boots, and kind people doing the best they can, just a door away.

Juno hummed, and Duck realized his eyes had closed. The top of her head was warm against his cheek, thanks to the sunlight. Duck winced. There was a spiral of guilt in his gut and he couldn’t take it. He cleared his throat.

“Okay - okay, listen.” He nudged her away and got to his feet, “There’s somethin’ else I have to tell you.”

She looked up at him, eyes bright. She smiled, and gestured to herself, as if to wearily say, _“Gimme it. I can take it.”_

“Okay. Okay, fuck. Right, y’know how I’m chosen? Minerva chose me, to be connected to and talk to all the way from her… planet?”

Her face fell slightly, eyes narrowing him suspiciously. “Uh huh…?”

He took a deep breath, and let his shoulders drop.

“You’re connected to her, too.”

She stared. The words seemed to hang in the air, and her eyes trailed down as the thought sank in.

Then she chuckled, standing up in front of him and shaking her head. “Wh - what?” She groaned, looking both amused and panicked. “I - I’ve never had an - an alien speak to me in the middle of the night, Duck. Why… h - how? In what way?”

“I know. It’s a lot,” he said. “But she’s looking for you - she doesn’t _know_ it’s you - but she told me that she might be able to talk to you, and you might, on _some_ level…” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Have magic powers.”

“Magic powers.” She repeated.

“Yes, she mentioned like, sunlight ‘n spring ‘n nature - and God knows what else - but she told me that…” He trailed off, before he said too much that his brain wouldn’t catch up to his mouth.

He sighed. “Okay, I still don’t know how this works. But whatever it is that lets me talk to Minerva - I think you _have_ it. And she _knows_ , but she can’t reach you.”

Juno nodded, and her gaze moved to the horizon, like she was slowly getting comfortable with what he was saying.

Then she spoke, with almost comical ease, “Okay.”

He sighed, blinking a few times. “You, uh- you believe me?”

“Duck, today I looked into the eyes of a freaky monster bastard thing that doesn’t even have eyes. I believe you, honey.”

Okay, great.

She rubbed her forehead. “Oh, boy,” she sighed. “So, she was looking for someone? When’d you know it was me?”

“I - I realized today, but…”

“You could - you could tell?”

“Yes. I think so. It’s weird.” He ran his hands through his hair and recalled something with a jolt. “Oh shit. There was also - there was also the, uh… that dream I had?”

She stared expectantly for a moment, unamused. “Yes?”

“You, uh… you were in that, it -”

“ _God_ , dammit, Duck -”

“It sorta freaked me out.”

“You are unbelievable.”

“I know, I know. Just -”

She looked away from him, crossing her arms. “I _knew_ you were lyin’,” she said, under her breath.

“Listen, here’s what I saw. The weird black twisted tree thing, and you passed out in front of it.” She scowled. He scowled back.

“Does that not scare you?” He asked, unsure what to think. “ ‘Cause it scares me! ‘S why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want to think about it.”

“Duck,” Juno snapped, before closing her eyes and taking a breather. “I’m sorry, but… everything that you ‘n these people have told me… Look, there’s a hell of a lot that I don’t know but I know that what we’re mixed up in is… dangerous and scary and - and unpredictable.”

She looked down at her hands, and swallowed.

“I know that this stuff is what… destroyed Leo’s store. It’s what tore my house up. This stuff… is what killed _Rick_." Her voice wilted, and Duck grabbed her hand. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and she kept herself strong.

"If I'm… involved at all in any of it, I need you to tell me."

He nodded, and his voice came soft again. “I… _just_ about saved you from this once. I don’t want you to get hurt again.”

She smiled sadly. “Twice,” she whispered.

They watched each other, hands still locked together. She stepped forward and slipped her arms around him, holding him closer but not pulling him in.

“But if that comes true, what was it? Me passed out in front of a tree?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh.” She smiled softly. “Don’t sound too bad.”

Then came the hug. Grounding and gentle. Duck’s cheek pressed against her head again. He wasn’t sure who this hug was supposed to be comforting. He reached up and placed a hand at the back of her head, and she hummed peacefully against his shoulder.

“Hey,” he said. “Minnie said to keep an eye open during the, uh - spring equinox.” He pulled back, but they didn’t let go of each other.

“Oh, yeah? Of course.” She rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s soon. March 20th or somethin’?”

“Well, that’s only four days a - _wait_. That - that’s the full moon.”

Juno’s eyebrows flew up, and Duck grimaced as he processed whatever the hell this meant.

“Well,” Juno said breathlessly, looking beyond the horizon and nodding slowly. “Fuck.”

* * *

_Years ago..._

“ _Please_ , Juno… you have to leave me… go on. Make me proud out there - wait, where’re you goin’?”

“I’m leavin’ you like you asked!”

“Oh, come on! I was kiddin’! Come back!”

Juno grinned and ran back over to where Thacker was waiting at the bottom of a steep patch of terrain, which she’d hopped up with little effort just moments ago. She stretched down and grabbed his arm and boosted him upwards with a pull.

Once he was up, he took a second, and heaved a big sigh, hands on his knees. “Thank you for that. _Boy howdy_ ,” he breathed.

“You alright there? Ya old codger?” She resumed making her way up the trail.

In a flash, Thacker was sprinting past her up the ragged pathway, nearly tripping over tree roots as he went.

“I’m not that old, dear!” He called, already leagues ahead.

“Godammit. Thacker!” Juno chased after him, her backpack swinging side to side.

The hiking trails up Mount Kepler were beautiful. Winding and littered with thick trees, and dipping every now and then into a bright, lush clearing.

Early summer carried something with it that was special to Juno, and if she wasn’t mistaken, always had. Since she was a kid and first started studying the forest, all the way up to sprinting up the trails now at eighteen years old, just out of high school.

They’d been at the hike for about an hour, and were soon to reach the end. It was a hot start to the season, but the trees had kept the beaming sun at bay. She'd wanted to go on a hike with Thacker and this was the one he’d suggested, and she was loving it. She wanted to use the best opportunity she had with him. She had some big news, and it lay happily and heavily in her stomach.

It was wonderful, even as air hastily left her lungs chasing Thacker up the winding trail.

Soon enough, he got winded and had to stop, leaning against a tree to catch his breath. She caught up to him, equally tuckered out.

She nudged his arm with what little strength she had. “You... _goober_ ,” she wheezed.

“Yup. Guilty,” he chuckled.

The two continued their walk, pointing out creatures and insects to one another as they spotted them.

The trail took them all over, and they found a place Juno had never seen. The sky and Monongahela beyond seemingly carved out of the trees.

“This is a great spot.” Thacker sighed, looking out across the forest.

“God… it _is_.” Juno almost lost herself in the view. The whole hike was worth it, just for this, and they hadn’t even finished yet. “Can we… stop here?”

Thacker nodded. “Sure we can.”

They dropped their backpacks and got comfortable, surrounded by woodlands, save for the part that allowed them the gorgeous view.

They weren’t far from the top of the mountain. It was like a grove, and the gap in the trees was almost like a window, looking out across the rolling hills and rivers. You could see for miles and miles, at the top of a rocky slope stretching all the way down to where the water ran free, that remained obscured by evergreens. Out of towners loved this trail, and it was often frequented by hikers and photographers. But today, it was just Juno and Thacker. Facing the world.

Thacker sat himself down on a mossy rock, and took a big sip of water. Juno did the same and pulled out a sketchbook and it didn't take her long to put all her focus on that. Dragged her pencil across the paper - outlining the trees surrounding the view to act as a frame for the rest of the landscape. Birds fluttered by, soothing any worry at the edge of Juno’s mind.

The wind wasn’t strong, and wasn’t too cold. But it still hurriedly stole the passing clouds away from the view. Leaves above shivered in the breeze, and Juno’s pencil shuffled along the paper. The two of them didn’t speak while the forest conversed around them. It was quiet, in Kepler’s special way that it was quiet.

Until she heard Thacker gasp softly.

“Oh _my -_ ” he breathed. Juno didn’t look up, engrossed in her drawing of the hillside. “June?”

“Hm?”

Thacker’s voice was a slow murmur, edged with caution. “As slowly… and as quietly as possible… turn ‘round.”

Juno lifted her head. He was staring at something just behind her, totally awestruck. But she did as he said, tentatively turned around, and almost dropped her sketchbook when she saw what it was.

A fawn. A baby deer, close by, watching her curiously.

Juno’s mouth fell right open. It was just… looking at her, legs all wobbly and ears twitching. Shiny black and white nose, adorable eyes, and auburn fur with white speckles that glimmered beautifully in the golden slivers of sunlight. It hadn’t made a sound as it clambered up behind her.

“Oh my _God…"_ She tried to keep her voice quiet, and it sounded like a squeal-y whisper. _"Thacker_?” 

The fawn got even closer, and began sniffing at Juno’s clothes. It was so friendly.

“I’ve never seen anythin’ like this…” Thacker marvelled, and Juno heard his bag shuffling around.

“It’s such a sweetheart,” Juno said, keeping her hands away from it. She didn’t want to put her scent on it, just in case.

Juno heard some little _clicks!_ from behind her and rolled her eyes, Thacker was snapping some photos on his camera. The fawn barely flinched. Juno made a kissing noise and waited for it to finish sniffing at her sketchbook and looking at her expectantly.

It nuzzled at her backpack and fiddled with her shoelaces before it continued to watch her for a little bit.

She chuckled softly. “What’s up?”

Its ear twitched once more as it turned to face the open landscape of the Monongahela. It gave Juno and Thacker one last passing glance before turning and strolling away. They watched as it disappeared off into the brush, off to find its mother somewhere, and Juno looked back at Thacker excitedly.

“How _cool_ was that?”

He shook his head, grinning. “They don’t usually just walk up to people. Maybe we were still enough that it got curious.”

Juno rested her hands on her sketchbook in her lap, thinking for a moment. “Hm. Y’know, I woke up with a flock of sparrows in my bedroom last year."

He gave her a strange look.

"Well, maybe Kepler’s wildlife's extra friendly."

"No, it's happened on vacation, too. In San Juan."

He laughed, and put his camera back in his bag. “Well then, I guess there’s just somethin’ special ‘bout you, Junebug.” Juno rolled her eyes. Everytime she thought he might’ve forgotten about that damn nickname, it would pop up in conversation again.

Thacker leaned back on his hands and took a deep breath of forest air. It was nice to spend time with someone whose happy place was the same as your own.

“It’s lovely up here,” he sighed.

Juno raised an eyebrow. “You should invite Barclay up here. Have a picnic together.”

He shook his head. “Ha ha. Very good, Juno. Very good.” He dug around in a small plastic bag and retrieved something and popped it in his mouth. It looked like a piece of granola but God knows what else it could’ve been.

“I’m just sayin’.” Juno rested her cheek on her hand, grinning. “You won’t stop talkin’ about him.”

“Yes, and?”

Juno grinned, and wiggled her shoulders.

“Enough. Bad.” He flinged some Gorp at her and she ducked away, giggling.

Thacker looked off into the distance again, expression soft and mind wandering. He huffed softly, like he’d thought of something funny.

“Aw,” Juno said quietly. His gaze flitted to her and he rolled his eyes.

“Anyway.” He waved a hand. “Can I see what you got so far?”

“Oh, yeah.” Juno passed him the sketchbook and put the pencil safely behind her ear. “I think I’m done.”

He took it in his hands and looked at it carefully, combing over every detail. Every now and then, his eyes would drift from the drawing to the view from the grove itself, and he’d smile. Thacker always looked at her sketches long enough to take in everything within them.

“That’s wonderful,” he said, finally. “You got it all in there. Wow… And the clouds are… huh.”

"I always draw the clouds last,” she said.

He handed it back to her. “You get better everyday, Junebug. Keep at it.”

She gently ran her fingers over the hills in the drawing, as they faded into the distance. Okay, maybe sometimes the nickname didn’t annoy her.

He took a drink of water and made a little noise. “Hm! Wasn’t there somethin’ you wanted to tell me? You said you had news.”

“Oh man, yeah! Uh -” She put the sketchbook back into her backpack and sat forward. He looked at her over his glasses.

Juno was surprised at herself. For keeping it a secret from him for a whole week. She’d been bursting at the seams with it, but now as he waited for it, something in her chest told her to keep it inside.

But the grin spreading across her face said otherwise.

“I, uh… I got into college.”

“West Virginia University does… all kinds of stuff and I - I found the perfect course for me and I think I’m gonna be able to - to do what I want and find work and meet people. Hopefully get to the forest service -” She shoved her hands over her face and chuckled. She was starting to talk fast.

She let her hands drop and looked at him. He was wearing a big smile. “Semester starts in September. And I didn’t wanna stray too far, so -”

“That’s amazin’. What’d I say, huh? What’d I tell ya?” He grabbed her hands in hers and squeezed. “I knew you’d get in exactly where you wanted to go. You’re cut right out for this work, Juno. This is… this is great.”

Juno smiled and nodded, and then the weighted words came out.

“It’s in, uh… Morgantown.”

Thacker’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh, right. Okay, you gon’ be, uh… relocatin’ up there, or...?”

Juno nodded, and her throat burned a little dry. It was hard to look him in the eye.

Thacker was silent, and Juno swore she saw his smile waver.

“That’s… that’s fantastic, sweetheart. C’mere.” He tossed his canister on the ground and scooched over and wrapped her up in a big hug.

Juno wrapped her arms around him and held on tight. She’d been so excited, and so nervous to tell him. She didn’t want to leave him, and didn’t really want to admit she was growing up. The only thing they could do was keep moving forward.

Juno wasn’t entirely sure who this hug was supposed to be comforting. She cracked an eye open and looked once more upon the green slopes of the Monongahela, alive in the sun. The world was blurred slightly, and she closed her eyes again, before a tear slipped out.

“I’m so proud ‘o you,” Thacker murmured, voice hoarse.

She chuckled softly. “You better not be cryin’, Thacker.”

“Of course I’m -” he cleared his throat, which rattled the chest that she was pressed against, and sniffed.

“ 'Course I’m not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GOOOOOOOOOOOD
> 
> i love writing this so much!! i hope you all enjoy as much as i do!!


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